LANSING – A proposal to expand the Michigan Merit Scholarship both in dollar amount awarded and in the number of students who could win the scholarship passed the Senate overwhelmingly Wednesday and went to a more skeptical House.

But with Senate approval, Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming) said he thought momentum would now build for the House to act on an expanded Merit Scholarship.

The proposal, in SB 1335 , passed the Senate on a 36-2 vote. It blends the current scholarship with a proposal brought by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to boost the scholarship and make it available to essentially all Michigan students.

Currently, the scholarship goes to high school students who get high scores on proficiency tests – the Michigan Educational Assessment Program before and now the ACT test – and totals $2,500.

Under the new proposal, the scholarship could total $4,000 for those students attending a four-year college.

Those students scoring well on the ACT would get $1,000 a year when they entered college or technical school.

But those students who did not score so well could still get the scholarship if they complete two years of college with a minimum grade point average of 2.5.

Sikkema said he was in favor of expanding scholarships overall, and his ideal would be something on the model of the Kalamazoo Promise – which will pay the tuition of every graduate of Kalamazoo schools – but that would be too costly at this point.

House Speaker Craig DeRoche (R-Novi) said headway has been made on enacting the Merit proposal, but now that the bill is in the House he wants “to go further and make the plan affordable for the long term.”

He said since awards have already been sent out for the year, the Legislature has some time to work on the Merit proposal, but that hopefully the bill would be worked on in the fall.

House Minority Leader Dianne Byrum (D-Onondaga) said the chamber should have voted on the Merit bill as the Senate did; adding that having the bill sent to the Appropriations Committee usually means the legislation is dead on arrival.

Sen. Deborah Cherry (D-Burton), sponsor of SB 1335, and Sen. Mike Goschka (R-Brant) both said they were glad the proposal provided a “second chance for students” to take advantage of the scholarship.

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