If lawmakers approve funding, Alaska high school students may soon have a strong financial incentive to learn and achieve.

The Legislature this year approved Gov. Sean Parnell's merit-based scholarship program but put funding on hold pending a higher education task force report and resolution of how to pay for the program. The governor proposed a $400 million endowment. Many lawmakers balked at the amount, and some also wanted a needs-based element in the program to help students of poorer families go to college or a post-secondary training program in Alaska.

Lawmakers left it to the state Department of Education and Early Development to make the rules, and the first round of those rules emphasizes student achievement.

Top yearly aid of $4,755 would go to students with a 3.5 or higher grade-point average on a 4.0 scale and high ACT and SAT scores. Students with at least a 3.0 grade-point average and lower scores would earn $3,566, and students with at least a 2.5 grade-point average would receive $2,378 a year.

It's a reasonable scale that rewards achievement. We'd argue that the rules should include maintaining similar averages in college or other post-secondary work to continue the aid, and also that some needs-based provision be available so the poorest students aren't kept out of school. Other states have found ways to mix the merit and need as criteria.

And we're aware that rigorous curriculum requirements could be a problem in Bush schools, and of the danger of putting too much stock in test scores.

But we don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, particularly in a state that has notoriously lagged in providing student aid compared with other states.

Students who work hard reap a tangible reward with this program, and that should help Alaska retain more of its bright and hard-working students -- students likely to become hard-working contributors to improving life here.

The Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education projects that 2,300 of Alaska's 8,000 high school graduates could benefit from these scholarships. That's a lot of help. And the number could increase once the program is in place and the incentives are real.

Reward merit, make sure need doesn't keep a good student out of school and set up sustainable funding. Doing so, Alaska can only get wiser.