Reporter
Higher education is an important personal investment opportunity. Logically, education costs money, and money is a scarce resource for most college students.
However, there is financial aid available to students who are willing to search for it. This aid exists in the form of scholarships.
Surprisingly, many students are unaware that there are scholarships available exclusively to them through the Office of Financial Aid here at CSU Bakersfield, and applying for these is just as easy as clicking “submit” once a general application has been filled out.
Scholarships are available from each school. Students from all majors have an opportunity to apply for aid.
The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships offers workshops to help students complete their applications, and they publicize these using their Facebook page and their website.
The only remaining workshop before the March 2 deadline is for the FAFSA /Dream Act, and this will be held on Feb. 24 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Walter Stiern Library in Lab 16.
March 2 is an important date to remember, as this is the deadline to submit both the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) and the scholarship application available to students through the financial aid office here at the university.
According to Interim Director of the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, Chad Morris, approximately 600 students apply for CSUB scholarships each year.
According to the “Welcome to CSUB” webpage, the university serves more than 8,720 students. This means that only about 7 percent of students apply for this aid.
In a written response, Morris stated that “CSUB Endowed scholarships awarded approximately $557,384 in 2016/17 and awarded approximately $834,321 from private donors for 2016/17.”
Outside resources are available, as well. “Students have the greatest chances of being awarded a scholarship from our institutional scholarship application – they are competing only against other CSUB students. There are many outside scholarships – students typically compete nationally for those. You may see some of them on our website,” Morris wrote.
Many students are unaware of the scholarships available to them, and some have not navigated through CSUB’s AcademicWorks website: csub.academicworks.com.
When you fill out a general application using the website, you will automatically be placed in a pool of applicants within your major and criteria to be awarded a scholarship. Selected recipients are awarded based on academic merit and financial need.
Additionally, you can search through the website for scholarship programs available and filter the opportunities by those that are recommended based on individual circumstance, those offered exclusively to CSUB students, and external scholarships provided by donors, which are made available to students outside of CSUB.
The March 2 deadline is soon approaching, and there is money to be awarded to selected individuals. Don’t delay. Apply today!
