TRACKING GOVERNMENT’S INVESTMENTS Scholarship Office surveys recipients

An initial survey conducted by the CNMI Scholarship Office on the status of CNMI’s post baccalaureate government scholars reveals that 49 percent of scholarship recipients during the last decade have completed their degrees and now hold jobs in the Commonwealth.

But out of some 356 scholars surveyed, the Scholarship Office disclosed it has lost touch with some 19 percent of students who have received college financial aid.

Officials said very little is known about the whereabouts of these students, and whether or not they have completed their postsecondary education.

“When students receive grants under us, the trend now is when they graduate, the communication stops. They rarely contact us to give a copy of their diploma or official transcript. So there’s no way for us to know if they really did finish,” said Scholarship Office Student Tracking Officer Niki Tudela.

Preliminary results of the study further show that 13 percent of scholars have graduated and are pursuing post graduate studies abroad. New graduates comprise eight percent of the 356 respondents.

The scholarship granting agency also disclosed that four percent of students surveyed have obtained college diplomas but have landed jobs outside the Commonwealth.

Scholarship Office Administrator Hilaria K. Santos explained these are the portion of recipients who have broken the scholarship rules by choosing to gain employment elsewhere.

“They did not fulfill the memorandum of agreement which states that they need to come back to the CNMI for a few years and work here,” said Ms. Santos.

“They attended school in the states, and they got so much money from the CNMI grant but when they graduated they stayed there and worked there. And that’s against the agreement,” added Ms. Tudela.

The survey, which the agency started in February of this year, has been commissioned to track recipients and determine whether the government is getting a good return of investment for the students that it has put through school.

Still a work in progress, officials warned that the survey results are not yet an accurate representation of the total number of scholarship recipients that have been served within the last 10 years.

“There’s a lot more that we haven’t surveyed, and that’s because we need to find out where these students are,” said Ms. Tudela, who is in charge of the status survey project.

She added that it would take a while for the Scholarship Office to complete the project since the survey count has to be done manually due to lack of adequate technology.

Admitting that the survey has been long overdue, Ms. Santos said the Scholarship Office is stepping up efforts to communicate with other agencies in order to properly document and categorize past scholarship recipients.