Central Arizona College has launched a new scholarship management system designed to make it easier for students, including hundreds from Maricopa, to apply for financial aid with a single online application.

The college partnered with Chicago-based AwardSpring, a platform that automatically matches students with scholarships they qualify for, replacing a more time-consuming manual process. The goal, CAC officials said this morning, is to expand access to scholarship funding and help more students afford college.

“The number of scholarship applications has increased more than 42% over the past two academic years,” said Jose Dagnino, the college’s director of financial aid. “As a financial aid team, it is our goal to help students access scholarship dollars to help them achieve their college education. We believe the AwardSpring program will do just this.”

Through one application, students can now apply for more than 50 scholarships, including institutional awards, CAC Foundation scholarships and the Pinal Promise Tuition Program.

“Students no longer need to spend hours sifting through scholarships they think they may be eligible for,” said Celina Moses, CAC’s financial aid programs coordinator, selling the program to any former college student who knows the pain of fumbling around the internet looking for help paying for tuition and books. 

For the 2025–26 academic year, 735 students from Maricopa are enrolled at CAC, including both traditional and dual-enrollment students. Of those, 312 have already completed the new AwardSpring scholarship application, according to the financial aid office.