Free money? Say less
The average college student spends about $24,000 per year on tuition, which includes books, housing and the cost of classes. Some students cannot afford to pay that much.
Luckily, there is help.
A great way to get some help is through scholarships. There are some scholarships that are only available during the month of February, so the Multicultural Center on campus is hosting scholarship walk-ins from 1-3 p.m. each Tuesday and Wednesday until the end of the month. Interim Director of Student Access at MSU, Abdurrahman Guantai, said this series is part of the Maverick Success Workshop schedule.
“We’re always trying to connect students with the resources that are available. And pretty consistently every year, we see that students are not necessarily aware of the depth of opportunities available on Scholarship Finder,” said Guantai. “We kind of go to them instead of just saying, ‘Well, yeah, if you make an appointment with us, we’ll be able to help you.’ We’ll still help them if they make an appointment with us, but walk-ins work better for people’s schedules.”
Scholarship Finder is a portal where students can find MSU scholarships. Some are open the whole year, and some have deadlines. Many open today and close at the end of the month.
“That’s why we’re doing the scholarship push right now. And it can be a scholarship for transfer students. A lot of them are based on your major or your department,” said Guantai. “There are a lot of them that are named after the person who either donated the money or as an alumni. As we’re looking for scholarships offered by MSU or by departments by the university in general, Scholarship Finder is where we list them.”
When applying for scholarships on Scholarship Finder, students must fill out a general application to help narrow down all the scholarships they are eligible for. It asks for information on what organizations students have been a part of, any honors or any other ways students have been a part of campus.
Guantai said that if students have any questions, they should come and get the help they need, no matter what point in the scholarship process they are.
“Our goal is to meet them wherever they’re at. If their first question is, ‘What is Scholarship Finder?’ We’ll start there. If they’re at the end of the application and ask, ‘Hey, can you just look this over for me real quick?’ We’ll look at that,” said Guantai.
Guantai also said there is no limit on how long students have to sit at this event.
“The Multicultural Center is open to everybody and can be here as long as they want. If they have a quick question and are in and out in five minutes, that works. If they want to be there the whole two hours working on their scholarship application and then asking questions when they come up, that works too,” said Guantai.
The Multicultural Center is on the second floor of the CSU, past the International Center and just before the Student Government office.
Photo caption: During February the Multicultural Center in the CSU will be hosting scholarship walk-ins every Tuesday and Wednesday from 1-3 p.m. (Nathanael Tilahun/The Reporter)
Write to Lauren Viska at Lauren.viska@mnsu.edu