How many countless hours have you spent doom-scrolling on your cellphone or taking “personality” quizzes online? Now, you have the opportunity to turn that time into cash for school!

Did you know that NMSU hosts a scholarship program to match qualified student candidates with thousands of open scholarship opportunities? Right now, New Mexico State University has over 2,300 scholarships just waiting to be awarded to students in need, with roughly 276 of these scholarships available through the College of Engineering alone.  Accessing over $900,000 in scholarships is as simple as taking an online quiz and writing some essays. The questions cover various topics, including employment, on/off-campus activities, goals, home/life experiences, career paths, educational courses, and more. For example, some scholarships are only for student with declared majors.  By completing these questions once, your responses are saved so that you can reapply each year. You can also update your responses in the Scholar Dollar$ application at any time.

For FY23-24, the Chemical & Materials Engineering (CHME) Department saw 59 of their students awarded over $85,000 in scholarships. The lowest scholarship awarded was $150, while the highest award was $5,000, with students averaging $835 in scholarship funds. There were a total of 102 scholarships awarded to CHME students alone. The total amount of aid provided to all NMSU students for the 23-24 year was $901,763, assisting 1,246 students so far. The complete list of scholarship sponsors and the CHME students receiving awards are shown below.  We thank the generous contributions from all of the scholarship sponsors.

The number of scholarships available and the amounts of each scholarship vary year to year based on endowment earnings and are awarded through the NMSU Foundation. Funds are awarded from several active scholarships: University Endowment, Quasi Endowment, Match Endowment, Foundation Endowment, and Foundation Current Use.

Scholar Dollar$ was designed as a collaborative tool for students to use alongside financial aid assistance available through submission of the FAFSA. Funds are awarded at the college level and are separate from financial aid. In addition, many awards do not require a minimum GPA, only that the student be in good standing with the university/2.0 overall GPA.

The Scholar Dollar$ application opens on October 1st every year. However, priority is given to students who apply by March 1st, so make sure to submit your application! Freshmen and high school seniors are also prioritized to attract recruitment for the Fall semester each year.

We highly encourage students to answer as many questions on the application as possible to the best of their ability to increase their chances of receiving an award. For the upcoming 24-25 aid year, the application has 303 questions in total, but not every question will apply to every student. However, EVERYONE should answer these final four questions:

300: What is influencing your chosen area of study? 

301: What do you hope to accomplish at NMSU and beyond? 

302: What would receiving this scholarship mean to you? How would it alter your current path if you did not receive it? )

303: Tell us something about yourself. Please start with where you are from and add additional information so your donor can get to know you such as what makes you smile every day, or what is something you are passionate about? 

Once a student submits their application, they will be placed in various nomination/match pools for scholarships depending on the criteria. The more questions you answer and the more information you provide, the better off you will be with receiving an award. 

Every College has a designated Scholarship Coordinator. For the College of Engineering, the contact person is Olivia Dulany (danceliv@nmsu.edu) who works in Goddard Hall. You can reach out to her with any questions you may have or if you need additional assistance that can't be provided by the Financial Aid office. She prides herself in awarding as many students as possible and strives to help students stay enrolled and graduate through Scholar Dollar$.

The point of this story: Apply for Scholar Dollar$ today! What do you have to lose?

List of ChME Scholarship recipients by Scholarship Award

THANK YOU SPONSORS!