Gov. Sean Parnell has a good idea in his Governor's Performance Scholarship program.

So do Sen. Johnny Ellis and Rep. David Guttenberg with their Alaska achievers scholarship programs.

The governor's plan is based strictly on academic merit. The two legislators would limit aid to students who need financial help.

Combine the best of both proposals, and Alaska would have a great way to help good students continue their education.

Gov. Parnell would award Alaska students, no matter what their financial means, scholarships based on their performance during a rigorous course load in high school. Students would have to take four years of math, four of languages, four of science and three years of social studies. Straight A students would have 100 percent of their tuition covered. (That would be more than $4,000, based on current University of Alaska tuition rates.) Students with a B average would earn 75 percent of tuition. Students with a high C average would earn 50 percent of tuition.

Last session, Ellis and Guttenberg introduced bills that would reward students who carried a minimum grade-point average with up to $4,000 a year in aid.

Both approaches aim to create endowments to support the scholarships. The governor's plan is far more ambitious -- he wants an endowment of $400 million.

Both stress performance -- students must make the grade to get the aid.

Both limit the aid to Alaska institutions.

Both aim to improve the academic performance, work ethic and skill level of young Alaskans with substantial incentives.

But Ellis and Guttenberg recognize that the state isn't doing enough to help good students who don't have money for further education. Gov. Parnell has said he's not interested in a needs-based program.

Let's take the best of these bills and make a scholarship fund that will inspire hardworking Alaska students -- whether college bound or thinking vocational ed or tech schools -- to excel in high school and reap the benefits of higher education.

• Keep incentives. The bills have differences on this score. Parnell's increases aid with better performance; Ellis and Guttenberg set a minimum standard students must meet. There's room for debate here, but one way or another, let's make sure students earn these scholarships. And let's keep something close to Parnell's tough curriculum standards. There may be room for some flex here -- that high-achieving young musician may be well worth the state's investment without taking physics. But the core curriculum needs to be challenging, with high expectations.

• Make the scholarships needs-based. Parnell says no, but many of the 22 state programs he cites as good examples are limited to students from low- and moderate-income families -- North Carolina, Rhode Island and Indiana, for example. There's a simple reason for this. Most high-achieving students come from families that can afford college. They'll go whether the state helps or not.

• Keep the process as simple as possible. Let's put our money toward scholarships, not administrative overhead.

Advocates of different approaches shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. There's agreement that Alaska should do more for motivated students to help them and all of us build a better state. There's agreement that some form of endowment should fund the scholarships. There's agreement that we can do better by all the state's sons and daughters than watch them graduate with a millstone of student-loan debt around their necks.

Our lawmakers should build on this common ground and create a scholarship fund this session.