A Saipan scholarship program that is funded by the license fees of a dwindling number of poker arcades wants to make it easier for first-time applicants to go to college.<\/p>\n
Talks to eliminate the grade point average requirement of first-time applicants for the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance program became a focal point of discussion during the SHEFA board meeting last week.<\/p>\n
It was not clarified at the meeting whether the high school GPA of first-time applicants or previous semester GPA of first-time applicants is to be overlooked.<\/p>\n
SHEFA board chair Oscar Babauta took the lead role in pushing for the abolition of the high school GPA requirement for incoming college freshmen that are first-time SHEFA applicants.<\/p>\n
Babauta questioned whether the high school GPA of SHEFA applicants is relevant to a students\u2019 pursuit of college.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We] seriously need to openly discuss the GPA for new applicants [of the SHEFA program]. Our prior denials of applicants are mainly because of high school GPA. I wanted to find out if we can further discuss this and deliberate more to come out with a solution and hopefully amend our rules and regulations,\u201d said Babauta.<\/p>\n
Babauta pointed out that denying SHEFA scholarship to students that strive to attain good grades in college but have slightly slacked off during high school sets a bad example.<\/p>\n
\u201cA student applies for the fall semester, having gotten fresh out of high school in June of the same year. We can consider eliminating this requirement so that if he\/she wanted to continue for the spring semester, we can follow through with his\/her fall GPA,\u201d Babauta told the board. \u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to say is the possibility of considering the elimination of the GPA for the first semester after high school or the first application of the students.\u201d <\/p>\n
SHEFA vice chair Juan Tenorio shared that SHEFA did not exist during his time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to use me as an example,\u201d said Tenorio. \u201cI bombed in high school. I had bad grades in high school. I admit it myself. But then, there was no SHEFA that time, and I didn\u2019t receive a CNMI Scholarship after the first semester. I didn\u2019t get it in the first semester but I got it in the next. I\u2019m just using myself as an example,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Babauta told board members that he merely wants to raise the issue for their discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can tell from the individual that they really want to pursue post-secondary education by finding a way for appealing and re-review of their application. I don\u2019t know if some of the board members have been approached,\u201d he said. \u201cI took it upon myself to see if we can have an open discussion on this matter and try to adopt a set of policies that would eliminate the requirement of the high school GPA for the first semester.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board member Ursula Lifoifoi-Aldan questioned how students are to be deemed eligible for SHEFA support if the GPA requirement is waived.<\/p>\n
After more scuffling, Tenorio spoke up, saying the goal of SHEFA is to \u201cprovide assistance to whoever wants to further their education.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s look at all the possibilities that we have. Everything has to go through the board to decide on what to do for the program. The CNMI Scholarship Office is already doing a no-GPA entry. If you [fail] after the first semester then I\u2019m sorry, you\u2019re not going to receive any more,\u201d he said, a few moments before the meeting was adjourned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Saipan scholarship program that is funded by the license fees of a dwindling number…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[138,3552,1325,689],"class_list":["post-241495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-gpa","tag-juan-tenorio","tag-oscar-babauta","tag-shefa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}