{"id":31223,"date":"2014-04-01T17:21:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T09:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=31223"},"modified":"2014-04-01T17:21:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T09:21:46","slug":"shefa-scholarship-checks-now-disbursed-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/shefa-scholarship-checks-now-disbursed-time\/","title":{"rendered":"SHEFA scholarship checks are now being disbursed on time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government scholars used to wait months in order to receive their checks. A different scenario now plays out at the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance, with the timely disbursement of financial grants to scholars.<\/span>
\nSHEFA administrator Merissa S. Rasa reported to the board during its recent meeting that the Department of Finance is now \u201cvery responsive\u201d in issuing checks to scholars.<\/p>\n

In fact, she said, there are only a few pending checks at Finance as of March 20.<\/p>\n

According to Rasa, the grants distributed to scholars as of March 20 totaled $845,300 covering recipients for spring 2014. SHEFA\u2019s remaining fiscal year 2013 budget is approximately $1.1 million, which will be used for this spring 2014 semester.<\/p>\n

For this semester, SHEFA received a total of 1,237 applications. The bulk came from college and university students here and abroad. Applications for this term include 305 new students, 80 returning recipients, and 852 ongoing students.<\/p>\n

As of March 20, Rasa said that 437 of these applications have so far been approved. Denied applications total 793 while five applications remain pending. Two applications are up for appeal.<\/p>\n

Rasa reported that 30 applications were received from students of the Northern Marianas Trade Institute. Of this number, 25 have been denied while two are pending for approval.<\/p>\n

NMTI applicants include three from automotive, four from construction, four from culinary arts, seven from electrical, eight from hotel and restaurant management, and four from the mechanic program.<\/p>\n

Though it is committed to providing assistance to NMTI students, SHEFA has yet to come up with a final policy for vocational and trade scholars.<\/p>\n

SHEFA was created in 2004. It has three scholarship programs: grant-in-aid, field of study, and incentive awards. Its funding comes from poker license fees collected by the government. Each fiscal year, the program is budgeted $3 million.<\/p>\n

SHEFA provides financial aid not only to undergraduates pursuing associate or baccalaureate degrees but also those who wish to pursue a master\u2019s or doctorate degree. All financial assistance are awarded twice a year: during the fall and spring terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government scholars used to wait months in order to receive their checks. A different scenario…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[689,44],"class_list":["post-31223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-shefa","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31223","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}