A town, at any legal meeting of the voters, may appropriate from its general funds money to pay all or part of the tuition and incidental expenses of one or more students from the town in any institution of higher learning. When a town makes such an appropriation, a committee consisting of the superintendent of the district in which the town is located, the chair of the school board, the chair of the prudential committee, if any, in the town, and the principals of each high school and academy in the town, or if there is not a high school or academy, the principal of the high school usually attended by the resident students shall constitute a board of selection. On or before August 1 following an appropriation, the board shall designate, on the basis of scholarship and need, the number of students authorized by the appropriation. The choice of the institution shall be made by each student receiving a scholarship.
16 V.S.A. § 2535