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Quitugua wants sholarships for high schools enrolled at college
Sen. Justo Quitugua (Ind-Saipan) wants scholarships made available to high school students who are also enrolled in the Northern Marianas College, according to a bill he introduced in the Senate last week.
Senate Bill 19-81 states that there are currently 81 students still enrolled at local public high schools who are taking college courses at the local college and that financial assistance should be made available to these students.
“These students are getting a head start on their college courses and should be encouraged and supported in their education endeavors,” Quitugua’s bill states. “The sooner these students graduate from college the sooner they can enter the CNMI workforce.”
The bill amends local statute that establishes programs and criteria financial aid for education—such as grants, scholarships and loans—so that these are available to “full-time and part-time students enrolled at an accredited institution of higher education or trade institution in the CNMI or any part of the United States and high school students with dual enrollment at a high school and the Northern Marianas College.”
The bill notes that over 40 percent of the CNMI government workforce are high school graduates and that encouraging high school graduates to pursue college is an “economic advantage” for the CNMI.
The bill stresses that—as the CNMI economy grows and recovers each fiscal year and new investors and businesses emerge—a shortage of U.S. citizen and/or permanent resident workforce remains.
The CNMI is constricted partly due to a local contract worker program that expires in 2019, which will leave “the CNMI without the requisite workforce” it needs to service the government and businesses on island, the bill states.
