Cal State Long Beach has become a little sweeter for 25 incoming freshmen who will receive a four-year grant from the Coca-Cola Foundation.
CSULB is one of 17 campuses in the nation that will split a $5 million dollar grant from the foundation. CSULB will receive $500,000 dollars to benefit 25 students who are first generation scholars. Each student will receive $20,000 in separate payments over the span of four years.
According to the Coca-Cola First Generation Scholarship requirements, a first generation scholar is defined as a student whose parents or siblings have never attended college. The grant will be dispersed among 25 students from 2012 to 2016.
CSULB is in the process of selecting the first five recipients, out of 20 contenders, for the 2012-13 school year. The university plans to accept applications in March through May of 2013 for seven more grants that will take effect in 2013-14.
Another seven students will be selected for 2014-15, and the grant will conclude with six final recipients for 2015-16.
“I like the idea,” said sophomore illustration major Phillip Barrios. “If your parents didn’t go to college, they don’t make as much money and don’t have the opportunity to send their kids to college.”
Melissa Miramonts, a freshman pre-nursing major, said it is not fair for those who are already attending CSULB because some students have to “work their butt off” in order to pay for college.
To be applicable for the scholarship, a student must be an incoming freshman. The scholarship will follow the students throughout their four-year college careers, Director of Community Relations for the Coca-Cola Foundation Kirk Glaze said.
The Coca-Cola Foundation reached out to CSULB because the school has a large population of first generation students, Glaze said. Since the foundation’s inception in 1993, it has given more than $23 million in scholarships to over 2,000 first generation students nationally.
“Geographically, we want to have a presence here [in Southern California],” Glaze said.
However, Coca-Cola’s presence on campus is nothing new. The CSULB 49er shops sell strictly Coke products by contract. CSU Fullerton, Dominguez Hills and LA exclusively sell Pepsi products.
“We are a Coca-Cola campus, but I don’t think that’s why [we got the grant],” Kevin Crowe, the executive director in the Office of College Development, said.
Glaze said the Foundation is a separate legal entity that has no connection with Coca-Cola’s business operations.
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