Conference committee keeps limit that scholarships cannot exceed cost of attendance, debates funding level for Senate Bill 2147

The conference committee on Senate Bill 2147 agreed Thursday to keep language preventing the bill's scholarships from exceeding a student's cost of attendance, but members did not reach agreement on how much money to appropriate and scheduled another meeting to try again.

Representative Tony Victor, who presented a funding chart to the panel, said the package currently under consideration would leave the program with $7,000,000 in total because the higher-education budget added $5,000,000 to a $2,000,000 bill-side appropriation.

"So right now, this program has $7,000,000 in it," Representative Victor said. He also said the worksheet the committee received estimates the program would cover about 2,400 students and that, at the $7,000,000 level, the award equates to roughly $729 per student.

Brenda Zastepo of the North Dakota University System told the committee the system historically awards aid to about 6,300 students per year and that most recipients'roughly 90 to 95 percent'attend full time. "On average, we pretty consistently award about 6,300 students per year," Zastepo said.…