Associated Students Inc. created the ASI Scholarship Program, which will award 25 scholarships at $1,000 each to students for the 2012-13 school year.
According to ASI Treasurer Michael Quibuyen, the ideas for the program came from Senators Jose Espeleta and Jorge Soriano as well as Vice President Stephen Thomas.
“The reason I wanted to have the scholarship for this year is because of the budget cuts and tuition increases in the past couple years,” Quibuyen said via email. “I believe that students need a little extra help, and as their student advocate on financial aid, I felt it was my way to award students that work so hard to obtain their degree but receive little help from the state.”
Any student is able to receive the scholarship if they are a full-time undergraduate student with a 2.0 GPA or a full-time graduate student with a 3.0 GPA. The student also cannot be receiving any other aid from ASI during the time of being awarded with the scholarship.
The scholarship application includes an essay based on two topics, which were chosen by Quibuyen. Students can choose to write about overcoming adversity and balancing responsibilities as a student or how their involvement at Cal State Long Beach has enriched their life.
“I chose the specific topics in the ASI Scholarship Program to diversify the pool of applicants because they needed to be broad enough for all students to apply,” Quibuyen said. “It’s simple because every student has a unique story and we want the students to tell us about it, whether it be an issue of overcoming adversity or participating at CSULB.”
The scholarships that ASI provides are generally for organizations and students involved in ASI.
According to Richard Haller, ASI director, the last ASI-funded scholarship that was open to the general student body was in 2008.
“We had the Working Student Scholarship in 2008, which was for students who had to work to finance their college tuition,” Haller said.
Quibuyen said the scholarship took the whole first half of the spring 2012 semester to put together.
“I felt the spring semester would be the best time to have this scholarship available because it will be for 2012-13,” Quibuyen said. “And with a potential $200 million cut from the state legislature looming over the CSU, it will be necessary for myself and ASI to support the students in any way possible to hopefully help any financial burden that they may face.”