The CSU-Pueblo Foundation has designated $125,000 from the Lois W. and J. Roland Mathis Education Fund to provide scholarship opportunities for graduate students during the 2016-2017 academic year.
The new scholarship opportunity replaces funds from the Regional Access to Graduate Education program, which previously helped fund grants for graduate studies, according to a CSU-Pueblo news release. The RAGE fund was exhausted during the 2015-2016 academic year.
CSU-Pueblo Foundation’s Director of Annual Giving and Scholarships and CSU-Pueblo alum Nick Potter said he wants to encourage qualifying students to apply for the scholarship. “We want students to know that funding is still available to them, just from a different source.”
“The foundation’s goal is to keep up with needs in the local community and securing ways in which to meet those needs,” Potter added.
The CSU-Pueblo Foundation had previously limited funds to aid post-baccalaureate students with scholarship assistance. The recent grant from the Lois W. and J. Roland Mathis Education Fund to the Foundation made it possible to contribute $125,000 toward supporting graduate students, as part of an endeavor to provide scholarship opportunities to all eligible CSU-Pueblo students.
Increased funding is aimed at boosting enrollment in graduate studies and improving the graduation rate of students enrolled in master’s degree programs at CSU-Pueblo.
Eligible scholarship recipients must have a 3.0 GPA and be enrolled in full-time or part-time studies in one of CSU-Pueblo’s nine graduate programs, which includes chemistry, bio-chemistry, biology, English, history, industrial and systems engineering, business administration, nursing and education.
Graduate students, including national and international applicants, can access the online application, which is separate from the undergraduate scholarship application, through their Personal Access to Web Services account, starting March 1. To be considered for Fall 2016-2017 scholarship awards, applications must be submitted by the priority deadline of April 1, 2016.
Potter said the CSU-Pueblo Foundation staff is constantly reevaluating the financial needs of the local community to find ways in which to meet the changing financial climate.
“The university is constantly changing because it serves such a unique area of society. CSU-Pueblo and the university system support everybody in finding their careers and what we do is based on that,” he said.
“CSU Pueblo students should know that we award about a million in scholarships for the campus,” he said, “which for a campus of our size is a really good dollar amount to be able to offer to our students. These come in terms of talent scholarships for art, music, athletics and to students who are financially needy and students who are academically worthy.”
In the news release, Todd Kelly, CSU-Pueblo Foundation President/CEO, said “The Mathis Fund offers CSU-Pueblo a great opportunity. Through this fund, we can provide scholarships to graduate-level students and the effects of the loss of the RAGE program can be minimized.”
Potter reiterated that CSU-Pueblo offers approximately 800 scholarships from roughly 200 funds to its students.
“We make it really easy for students to complete one application and then we do the matching for them,” Potter said. He also encourages students to follow up after they’ve applied for a scholarship.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease!” he added.
For more information, students can contact the CSU-Pueblo Foundation at 719-549-2380.
