Utah was one of eight states to get $300,000 in federal funding this week to encourage high-school students to take a more rigorous curriculum in high school.

The money will be used over the next two years in four school districts — Granite, Jordan, Park City and Provo — to hire a project director, train counselors and implement a marketing strategy for the Utah State Scholars Initiative.

The initiative encourages students to take four years of English, four years of math, three years of science, three and a half years of social studies and two year of a foreign language. The effort will be tied to a proposed Utah Regents' Scholar Award, which will grant automatic admission to any of Utah's public universities to students who earn at least a B average in a more rigorous curriculum.