75 students from the Alumni Scholarships program, who are completing their studies this year, celebrated their graduation at a ceremony presided over by the Alumni Vice President , Tomás Gómez-Acebo. This year, a total of 380 young people from 26 countries are studying thanks to this initiative, a scholarship program aimed at students with good academic records and without sufficient financial resources to pay for a university degree.

The Alumni Vice President highlighted three characteristics of the Alumni Fellows: "Responsible talent, to contribute to the improvement of society; perseverance, core topic to get to where you are; and generosity, the starting point of the Alumni Scholarships". In this sense, in addition to congratulating the new graduates, he invited them to continue with "this chain of solidarity".

Also participating in the graduation ceremony were the Vice-Dean of Students of the School of Education and Psychology and godmother of the XV Promotion, Sonia Rivas; Igor Errasti, Administrator of the University; and Santiago Mateo, student of the double Degree in Pedagogy and Education Primary and representative of the promotion, who showed special thanks to "the donors of the program".

The students that make up the XV Promotion of the Alumni Scholarships Program come from 10 countries: Costa Rica (2), Ecuador (2), Spain (60), Guatemala (2), Mexico (1), Peru (1), Poland (1), Dominican Republic (2), Ukraine (1) and Venezuela (3).

This year, four students from Tecnun have benefited from this program. Latin American student Paula Castro highlights that the fact of having received the scholarship Alumni was one of the main factors that helped her choose Tecnun as the university to study at. In general, it is not easy to get a scholarship from this subject and for me it is a great financial aid on the part of the university. Also, the fact that they take international students into account is something to highlight because it shows that if you have the ability, it doesn't matter where you are from or what economic condition you have, what matters is that you want to be educated without having to worry about the economic part". 

Another international student of Tecnun, Juan José Torres, emphasizes that "without any doubt, if it had not been for scholarship Alumni I would not have been able to be part of project of Tecnun or the University of Navarra. The scholarship was the determining factor in my decision to come from Ecuador to Spain to study and enjoy all the good things that Tecnunhas to offer". 

And now that he is just graduate, Juan José values the enormous satisfaction of a job well done. "Memories of the race come to my mind and the fear I felt when I was in first grade in case I didn't get to renew the scholarship. So now it gives me great joy to be able to remember all this and know that all the effort was worth it. For all this, I want to help the Alumni Scholarships program so that they can continue with their mission statement and many more people will have the opportunity to study at the University of Navarra".

For his part, Pablo Sacristán emphasizes that "one feels fortunate to be part of the program of the University of Navarra whose goal is that no young person should stop studying at this university for economic reasons". Sacristán looks back and is left with "the satisfaction of seeing that many of us who started in the Alumni Scholarships program have successfully completed it". The Venezuelan student Dario Brillembourg has been the fourth student of Tecnun that has been graduate this year thanks to the Alumni Scholarships. 

The budget of the program has been 2.5 million euros for this academic year, with an average amount of 7,575 euros per scholarship. The initiative is financed thanks to the contributions of more than 9,000 alumni, companies and institutions, including Banco Santander, through Santander Universities, Caja Rural de Navarra, IEISA Foundation, the association of Friends of the University of Navarra, Banco Pichincha, Bolar Foundation and ONCE Foundation.