Scholarship will help UNLV business school students amid pandemic

A new scholarship has been set up for current UNLV business students to help alleviate financial worries amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Homie Scholarship Fund will offer 10 scholarships of $1,000 each during the 2020-21 academic year and will be awarded by UNLV’s Lee Business School to full- or part-time students majoring in business. UNLV will start most of its fall classes remotely Monday.

Mike Peregrina, co-founder of tech-based real estate brokerage company Homie, said that he knows the value of a UNLV education and the scholarship will help current business students.

“I hope that this scholarship can create a vehicle for these families that believe so much in education but have fallen into hardship and see this as an opportunity to continue to pursue their education and not give up,” Peregrina said. “Financial relief can just remove so much stress, which can really impede your mind and body — it’s physically draining.”

Peregrina attributed much of his success to UNLV’s Lee Business School and the university’s participation in the CFA Institute Research Challenge, a global financial analysis competition between other colleges.

“I really developed a skill set around finance and applied the classroom learning with the real-world environment through UNLV,” Peregrina said. “The business school was really instrumental in me developing this core competency that I could apply in the work environment as an investment banker and later working in venture capital.”

A UNLV spokeswoman confirmed the university is working with Homie on the business school scholarship. Those interested are directed to contact the Lee Business School.

Alums have given back to the school at the onset of the pandemic, including donations to UNLV’s food pantry, which serves more than 200 students and faculty.

“Las Vegas is the kind of city that comes together in times of need. UNLV alumni are like that, too,” Blake Douglas of the UNLV Alumni Association said in a statement. “When they see others struggling, they step up.”

Contact Jonathan Ng at jng@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ByJonathanNg on Twitter.