CSUN’s Scholarships and Grants Committee is creating new scholarships and grant opportunities to select students on campus.
The Scholarships and Grants Committee distributes existing scholarships required in CSUN’s bylaws and works with UNLV to create more opportunities for scholarships and grants to students.
This year, CSUN allocated $354,800 to the Scholarships and Grants Committee. $112,000 is dedicated to existing scholarships, and $32,000 will be put towards new scholarships created by the committee, according to a recent presentation from the Scholarships and Grants Committee.
“You always hear that UNLV is the most diverse campus in the nation,” Nadia Harrara, head of the Scholarships and Grants Committee said. “We are always making sure that we’re catering to as many students as possible, so we have a lot of identity based scholarships. We also have scholarships that are offered to certain majors.”
Each of the 17 scholarships currently offered by CSUN is only distributed to a limited number of students and is decided by reviewing applications submitted by students. Most of these scholarships are only awarded to four to five students, awarding $2,000 that is split in half over two semesters.
Applications for CSUN scholarships in the spring are open from January to the end of March. More will be opening throughout April and May.
Harrara and other members of the committee highlighted the Indegenous Community R.I.S.E. Scholarship as one that seems to be missed by the university’s large indegenous population.
They also highlighted the Graduate studies, Research, Application, Necessities for study, Travel and Study abroad (G.R.A.N.T.S.) program, which helps students who seek aid to carry out any of the tasks labeled in the title, such as research or study abroad, if they qualify.
“I personally love scholarships and grants for the way that it goes right back to the students,” Harrara said. “You put money in and then you get to make scholarships out of that and help students release some fees of tuition.”
CSUN gets its funding from fees included in every student’s tuition, income from endowments, unused revenue from the previous year and other money deposited into the annual operating budget or accounts under the budget, according to the current CSUN bylaws. Every student currently pays $1.97 per credit hour.
By the end of May, CSUN’s president will be deciding what is to be done with this funding with the help of the business manager and the Ways and Means committee. They put together the organization’s annual budget for the coming year. The budget is then submitted for approval from the CSUN senate. CSUN’s bylaws currently include 15 scholarships that require funding in each annual budget.
Information and applications for all of the CSUN scholarships can be found on the CSUN website. Also every CSUN senate meeting is held on Mondays in the Student Union, and every meeting is open to public comment.
