When Florida lawmakers first established the Bright Futures scholarships, the goal was to create a financial incentive to attract the state’s top high school graduates to the university system.

Merit based instead of needs based, the scholarship had high grade point and test score requirements, while also setting standards for community service hours.

Over time, the percentile ranking of the test scores changed, but the law referred to the actual point totals rather than those rankings. Now, state Sen. Kelli Stargel wants to restate the SAT/ACT expectations for the awards as percentile levels instead — 89th or higher for the top Academic scholarship, and 75th to 88th for the Medallion scholarship.

It’s going to the original intention of the Bright Futures scholarships," Stargel said, while explaining SB 190 in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

The proposal raised some concerns that tougher requirements might hurt some student groups more than others.

“Do we think this will disproportionately affect the minority community?” asked Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa.

Stargel said she did not have numbers available, and instead spoke about decreases in performance gaps among demographic groups in areas such as Advanced Placement and other exams. She acknowledged, though, that the result would be to focus on top performing teens, which would mean some who qualify now for the money might not under different criteria.

If approved, the bill also would extend Bright Futures scholarships to students who graduate from private schools. It would lengthen the amount of time a student has to claim the scholarships, as well.

The legislation would take other unrelated steps as well, including:

- Changing the allocation formula for any leftover balance of the Safe Schools allocation.

- Making permanent a compression formula in the state funding system. The formula provides added money to districts where the total funds per full-time student was less than the state average in the previous year.

Related: Lawmakers took millions from big school districts and steered the money to smaller ones

The bill passed unanimously without debate. It next heads to the PreK-12 Appropriations subcommittee.