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New law extends beneficiaries of SHEFA funds
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Posted on Mar 31 2009
Gov. Benigno Fitial signed a local bill into law yesterday that allows more local students to benefit from the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance scholarship.
Under Saipan Local Law 16-8, students who have no high school degree or the equivalent but who are working toward a degree can obtain financial assistance to help pay for the cost of a trade school.
“The delegation is cognizant that many in our community are still working to complete their high school education and have the strong desire to learn a skill or trade so that they can become employable,” the bill states. “It is time to focus some attention to those left out and provide the incentive to persuade some, if not all, to enter a trade program.”
Previously, only students who finished high school were eligible for SHEFA funds.
Fitial, at the signing of the bill into law, said the new law would help provide the CNMI with a local workforce.
“Right now we’ve been relying on imported labor,” he said.
Northern Marianas College was envisioned to be a trade institution when it first opened, but because of a change in laws the college began focusing on professional programs in order to receive funding, he said.
Rep. Justo S. Quitugua echoed this. The initial reason for the establishment of NMC was to develop a local labor force, he said, but that changed over time.
This law will help attract more local students to trade schools like the Northern Marianas Trades Institute, he added.
One of the conditions of receiving SHEFA funds is that the students stay and work in the CNMI for at least one year in exchange for the scholarship money. Since its inception in 2004, the scholarship program has yet to track down all the beneficiaries to see if they met the conditions.
Quitugua said it’s hard to tell if the students will stay or leave.
He said jobs are becoming scarce here as businesses downsize. Some of the students have loans.
“As much as we would like them to come back here, but at the same time we cannot ask them to stay here and be unemployed and their students loans will continue to pile up,” he said, adding that it is often beyond their control.
