Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas proposed a 15-year, $175 million program to fund new college scholarships for Vermont residents in his Jan. 5 "State of the State" address. If Douglas' Vermont Promise Scholarships proposal is approved by the legislature, the University of Vermont would receive $1 million in the 2007 fiscal year to provide half- and quarter-tuition scholarship grants.

A related proposal, for Next Generation Jobs Investment, would provide another $1 million to the university that year for investment in research and development to support and create technology transfer and job creation in the field of advanced sustainable environmental technologies.

All told, the Vermont Promise Scholarships and the Next Generation Jobs Investment proposals would evenly divide a total of $6 million in fiscal 2007 state funding between the University of Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.

Douglas said the proposals are designed to make higher education at the state's public university and private and public colleges more affordable for Vermont residents and reduce the state's nation-leading percentage of high school graduates who leave their home state to go to college. The effort is also intended to encourage college graduates to start their careers in Vermont, building what he called a "new generation of opportunity."

"Vermont Promise Scholarships would support a key UVM priority by helping us enroll the most talented and deserving Vermont students and achieve our long-held goal of being a major engine in reversing Vermont's brain drain, the loss of the state's rising generation to outmigration during their college years and beyond," said President Daniel Mark Fogel. "Investment in next-generation jobs through university research and technology transfer would also further our goal of establishing this state as the best place in the world for the innovation and design of sustainable environmental technologies."

The Vermont Promise Scholarships would create some 300 four-year scholarships at UVM annually over the life of the proposed program, 100 at 50 percent reduction in tuition and 200 at 25 percent of tuition. The scholarships would be awarded based on merit and need criteria established by the university. All told, the proposal would fund 12,000 scholarships for Vermont students.

Douglas said that increased revenues from Vermont's tobacco settlement would fund the bulk of the new program.