To assist with the other costs of college besides tuition, the Los Rios Community College District has announced a new $750,000 scholarship for first-year students.
Funded by Wells Fargo, SAFE Credit Union, Sutter Health and VSP Global, the scholarship was created as an incentive for students to enroll in college.
“We just recognize that for our students, there so many other barriers in addition to tuition and so we wanted to raise private philanthropic support to help remove those barriers for our neediest students,” said Paula Allison, the associate vice chancellor of resource development at Los Rios Community College District.
For this upcoming fall semester, there were 120 scholarships awarded and each student received $500.
Within the Los Rios district, there are 13 campus locations and around $75,000 students enrolled annually.
The average cost of community colleges within the district is $46 per unit or credit. However, nearly one-third of Los Rios students live below the poverty line and another quarter are low-income, according to district statistics.
