The La Caixa Foundation has awarded 50 new undergraduate scholarships for excellent students, but who have limited financial resources, corresponding to the 2023 call. This is the third promotion of the Undergraduate Scholarships program, created in 2021 with the aim of promote equal opportunities in access to university education. In its first three years, the program has made it possible for 150 young people to access university thanks to these grants.
The scholarship offers a monthly economic endowment of 600 euros, in addition to initial aid to acquire computer material and equipment, complementary aid for international stays, language courses, and a program of accompaniment and training in transversal skills.
In this year's edition, the La Caixa Foundation has received 480 scholarship applications from young people from 24 different Spanish provinces, of which 50 have been awarded so that these students can begin their undergraduate studies or higher artistic education in September of this year. anus.
Similarly, in this third edition of the call, the degrees most in demand by applicants have been: Law (7), Medicine (5), Business Administration and Management (5) and Aerospace Engineering (5). And the centers that will receive the most scholarship holders are: University of Barcelona (4), Complutense University of Madrid (4), University of Granada (4) and University of Malaga (4).
“We know that many talented and dedicated young people are forced to abandon their desire to go to college for financial reasons. With these scholarships, we want to help students with academic excellence who have grown up in environments of need, and who have cultivated effort, perseverance, knowledge, and sensitivity, to be able to go as far as they want to go," explains the president of the La Caixa Foundation, Isidro Fainé.
At the same time, during the second week of July, the first meeting of undergraduate scholarship holders took place in Barcelona, which was attended by those of the first edition (in 2021). For four days, they have had the opportunity to share ideas, strengthen ties and acquire new learning through training visits and sessions with program counselors.
“This scholarship has radically changed my life. It is allowing me to do the studies I wanted at the university I wanted. It is a recognition of the effort I made at the institute and it has made me feel that my talent has no limits”, says Joaquín Márquez, one of the scholarship holders present at the meeting. “This scholarship is an opportunity for all of us, who are willing to conquer the world and make it a better place,” adds this young man born in Argentina and raised in Spain, who is studying Physics at the Complutense University of Madrid.
The meeting in Barcelona ended with an act of recognition for the scholarship holders of that first call, held at the CosmoCaixa Science Museum in this city.
The La Caixa Foundation scholarship program was created in 1982 with the aim of promoting international mobility and promoting excellent training and research at the best universities and research centers in the world, through its postgraduate scholarship program in abroad. Later, with doctoral and post-doctoral programs in Spain and Portugal, it opted to attract and retain the best Spanish and international research talent, and promote cutting-edge research in the Iberian Peninsula. During these more than 40 years, there are already almost 6,000 students and researchers who have obtained one of these scholarships.
