New Scholarship Universe program brings changes to financial aid
The official Central Michigan University Seal during the 2024 fall semester. (CM Life | Blace Carpenter)
A number of new changes by Central Michigan University's Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid have reworked the timeframe, interface and the website for applying for scholarships for the next full academic year and beyond.
Sarah Kasabian-Larson, director of the OSFA, oversees the processing and administration of financial aid and scholarships to students. She said the changes were designed to increase transparency and help students apply for and keep scholarships.
One of those changes was to move the timeframe and deadlines for applying for scholarships. Previously, scholarships generally became open to apply in the early spring semester, either in January and February, and stayed open to the end of April.
Instead, that timeframe for applying for scholarships has moved to Oct. 1 with Nov. 30 being the deadline.
Kasabian-Larson said the changes to the dates were made so that individual departments and colleges that offer scholarships can have time to review applicants and make selections. This allows the OSFA to check eligibility and then get on to students’ estimated aid packages.
“The goal is to have that estimated package to the students when they’re registering for classes the next year, so you’re not worried about ‘Am I gonna have aid next year?’" Kasabian-Larson said. “We want you to register with confidence. Like this is my estimated aid package. So, I just need to keep pushing through, come back next year, and this is what I am receiving."
The other change was with the way and locations of many scholarships, Kasabian-Larson said. Departmental scholarships and endowed scholarships are now centralized into one platform on Scholarship Universe with an updated assistance page with dates and events.
Scholarship Universe Gold hosts external scholarships outside of CMU.
She said that before, many scholarships were both in Scholarship Universe and tucked away in various colleges and departments with varying requirements and instructions on how to apply to them.
“You had to search the web to find them all of them, and then applications like how you would like of how you would apply were different depending on the different departments and colleges that were offering the scholarships,” Kasabian-Larson said. “So, just to be as transparent as possible and make this easier for students, we moved everyone to the same spot.”
The planning of the changes was put in place during the previous spring semester and is implemented for this semester, Kasabian-Larson said. The scholarships that students will be applying for in the fall of this semester will be for the next full academic year.
