LAS VEGAS -- Nevada will begin asking Millennium Scholarship qualifiers if they are U.S. citizens, and might bar undocumented high school graduates from getting state funds to attend in-state colleges.
More than 7,000 Nevada high school graduates with A and B averages will get notices in coming weeks saying they qualify for up to $10,000 in college aid, State Treasurer Brian Krolicki said.
For the first time, a box on a response letter will ask them to declare their citizenship.
"If they don't check the box because their status can't permit them to, they would not be eligible for a Millennium Scholarship," Krolicki told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a Monday report.
Krolicki is due to bring the plan to the Nevada Board of Regents on June 18 and 19 in Reno.
The state treasurer is responsible for overseeing the state's Millennium Scholarship program.
He pointed to a national debate about whether states are breaking federal law by giving government-subsidized tuition breaks to undocumented immigrants who graduate from U.S. high schools.
Krolicki said his plan would be "self-policing," because the Nevada treasurer's office doesn't have the staff to do background checks on thousands of Nevada high school students who qualify each year for Millennium Scholarships.
