Only 63 apply for part-time scholarships at NMC

The Northern Marianas College expected up to 300 applicants for its part-time scholarship program, but only 63 individuals have applied for educational financial assistance offered by the CNMI Scholarship Office.

Scholarship Office administrator Merissa Seman-Rasa said yesterday that since they started accepting applications in November, only a few individuals applied for the program for the Spring 2009 term.

The financial assistance is offered to full-time employees in both government and private sectors who want to enroll as part-time students at NMC.

“We only received 63 applicants for the part-time scholarship program [for this spring 2009]. The number is far fewer than our target number of 200 to 300 recipients,” she said.

Of the 63 applicants, only 35 have been approved, three were denied, and the rest are working on the requirements of the program, Seman-Rasa added.

“We will wait until Friday this week…for the submission of incomplete documents from the applicants,” she said.

Under the scholarship rules, a part-time student needs between six to 11 credits, while full-time students are required to obtain 10 credits and above.

Seman-Rasa said the scholarship office allocated $800 for each part-time student, while full-time students would get $1,980 per semester.

She said scholarship applicants followed the same requirements as the educational assistance program rules and regulations.

The administrator believes that economic issues remain the top factor to explain the low turnout of applicants.

“Because the choice is just between work and school, a lot of people just don’t want to be bothered in their job. This, I believe, is one consideration,” she added.

Seman-Rasa said there are applicants who later decide to become full-time students after considering the amount of the assistance—from $800 for part-time students to $1,980 for full-time ones.

She said a lack of information about the program was not the reason for the low enrollment because both NMC and the scholarship office were active in disseminating information on time.

The continuation of the part-time scholarship, Seman-Rasa added, will depend on the availability of funds for the program.

She admitted that this may only be a one-shot assistance solely for this spring semester.

The CNMI Scholarship Office is offering three scholarship programs in addition to part-time scholarship grant. These include honor scholarship, which provides up to $15,000 yearly to qualified applicants and currently has 45-50 beneficiaries obtaining their degrees abroad. The teacher scholarship program, meantime, provides up to $12,000 yearly per student. There are currently four scholars under this category who are all finishing the duration of their grants.

The third existing scholarship is the educational assistance grant, which has 1,090 beneficiaries. Each scholar is provided $1,980 per semester, equivalent to over $3,000 for Spring and Fall semesters.

The scholarship board had decided to offer the part-time scholarship program to assist individuals on island who want to attain their educational goals while working full time. Some $250,000 from the local scholarship trust fund was identified for this program.