Case Study: California State University, Long Beach achieves 30% increase in scholarship fund utilization with Blackbaud Award Management

See the path to 100% utilization of in-system scholarship funds

California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), one of the largest universities in California serving nearly 40,000 students, faced a decentralized scholarship process spread across homegrown systems, paper applications, and varied local methods. That fragmentation left administrators without consistent student data or visibility into awards and resulted in thousands of dollars in unused scholarship funds and difficulty matching students to funds with specific criteria.

By implementing Blackbaud Award Management, CSULB centralized all scholarship awards into a single cloud platform that preserved the needs of individual colleges while giving the Financial Aid and Scholarship office up‑to‑date student data and award status. The system enabled better matching, faster application edits, and redesigned criteria for tighter fits—driving a 30% increase in fund utilization, near‑100% utilization for funds housed in the system, and an immediate, sustained rise in applications.

California State University Long Beach

Oliver Mamangun

Assistant Director of University Scholarships