The Jerold Rosenberg Family Scholarship

Jerold Rosenberg earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in History at San Francisco State University in 1962. During summer session of 1964, Jerry was a participant on the San Francisco State around the world tour. Jerry felt this was pivotal learning experience.

While he loved history, Jerry changed directions after graduating and started his own insurance business called The Rosenberg Company. A bit of an iconoclast, Jerry directed his business towards serving private clients that his competition rejected as too small. Slowly over time, his business grew and ultimately, he became quite successful.

Jerry decided to give back to his alma mater once he was able to, by creating an endowed scholarship fund. Reflecting on his experience as a student, and ever the iconoclast, Jerry’s approach was unique. The Jerold Rosenberg Family Scholarship, established in 2014, is awarded each year to first-year students in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts (CLCA) with a GPA of 2.5-3.33. The scholarship covers each student’s entire tuition and automatically renews each year if awardees remain full-time students at the University and maintain or improve their GPAs. Recipients are also eligible to apply for funding towards a graduate degree at SF State if they choose to continue their studies beyond graduation.

Jerry’s theory was that relieving lower-performing students of the need to pay tuition for their entire college career would allow them to leave minimum wage jobs and spend more time on their studies, which would also result in their achieving higher grades and graduating.