Donor-funded scholarships help UNLV students

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As college tuition rises, scholarships are becoming more important than ever. And there are plenty to choose from.

There’s one at UNLV that aims to educate cocktail waitresses. Another that honors a golf student who died. There’s a small one for seniors who are close to graduating but might not be able to afford to take all the classes they need without help.

This year, there’s a new one, funded by a gift from NV Energy. It gives up to $5,000 a year to students who want to pursue careers in renewable energy.

“When I first got the scholarship, it really helped push me to UNLV,” said Layla Rouas, 19, who is studying civil engineering at the university.

Students who choose the Solar and Renewable Energy minor at UNLV are eligible for the scholarship. The availability of that minor field of study, which UNLV added in 2009, is part of the reason Rouas chose UNLV.

She graduated from Durango High School last year and went away to Utah State University, which has good engineering programs. She had a full ride, meaning school didn’t cost her or her parents a penny.

But she didn’t love it there. She started thinking about coming back home. She talked it over with her folks and decided to apply.

Then she got the scholarship. That made the decision easy. Combined with some other scholarships she received, she now has a full ride at UNLV, too.

That’s an important part of the scholarship picture, said Nancy Strouse, the university’s senior vice president for development and the executive director of the UNLV Foundation.

Tuition and fees are going up everywhere. In Nevada, they have more than doubled in the past decade.

“Scholarships have always been important. As tuition goes up, they become even more so,” Strouse said.

She said the availability of scholarships helps a university attract top students.

The foundation, the nonprofit fundraising arm of the university, has been given more than $100 million just for scholarships in the last 30 years.

Tony Allen, a university spokesman, said 1,376 students received donor-funded scholarships last year. The university disbursed 45 percent of all financial aid given last year by public colleges and universities in the state.

Strouse put her money where her mouth is earlier this year. When her mother died, Strouse donated money to the university foundation to create a scholarship. The Betty J. Holmes scholarship will help pay the tuition of a student who is close to graduating but might not be able to afford to pay for school without the help.

“It’s wonderful for me to be able to honor my mom this way,” Strouse said.

That’s been the motivation for many of the donations that fund the dozens of scholarships available.

Others were gifts from foundations or corporations, like the NV Energy donation. That gift, $500,000, funded not just the scholarships, but also the Solar and Renewable Energy minor.

Kent Buenaventura, 17, said the minor and the scholarship were big reasons he chose UNLV.

He just graduated from Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas and wanted to go into engineering, so he applied to a half dozen schools.

He ended up choosing UNLV.

“Money was a big factor,” he said. “UNLV had the smallest financial burden for me and my family.”

The renewable energy minor got him thinking, too.

“I just thought, living in one of the best areas for renewable energy to thrive and be useful, being in renewable energy would be great for my career,” he said.

Buenaventura has set a goal for himself: He wants to someday design a commercial airliner that runs entirely on renewable energy.

Whether he ends up doing that or not, he probably wouldn’t even be chasing the dream without the scholarship.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.