Each year OERB, an organization funded by Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry, offers scholarships to students from OU, Oklahoma State University and Tulsa University.

This year the organization is unable to award scholarships to new applicants. Scholarships only will be awarded to existing scholars, OERB Executive Director Mindy Stitt said. This was despite the fact more than 300 new applications were sent in by Oklahoma students.

Stitt said the reason for this is due to a cut in scholarship funding.

OERB receives its funding from the oil and natural gas industry as a percentage of oil prices, she said. When oil prices dropped last fall, the amount available to OERB fell as well.

Stitt said when the organization advertised the scholarship opportunities, it did not know the funding would be cut so drastically.

If a student received the scholarship last year, Stitt said he or she must reapply for the scholarship to be eligible for it. Scholars who no longer meet the grade point average requirement or have changed majors will lose their funding.

“We weren’t going to cut any of our scholars out, but we couldn’t add any additional scholars,” she said.

She said there currently are 147 scholars, and hopes more funding will be available to the organization for scholarships in the future. Students can apply for an OERB scholarship for the 2010-2011 school year until March 2010.