By: Cherish Golden
We are just months away from releasing our publicly-available interactive website tool that gives Native students one central place to search for funding opportunities they are eligible for. The tool will include all data from our inventory of financial aid opportunities available to Native students at the state, postsecondary system, and institutional level. In the meantime, we want to share information we think can help students, practitioners, and policymakers.
Whether you are a student, parent, or guardian looking at institutions, or a support person such as a mentor, teacher, or counselor, we encourage you to pay close attention to the details of these opportunities to help guide the college search process.
In this month’s blog, we highlight opportunities found in the Southwest region of the United States. We discovered 26 funding opportunities across 5 states: Arizona (10), Nevada (1), New Mexico (7), Oklahoma (7), and Texas (1).
High-Level Overview of the Funding Opportunities
Arizona’s 10 and Oklahoma’s 7 funding opportunities are all at the institutional level.
Nevada is the only state in this region with a system level policy. New Mexico is the only state in this region to offer a state level funding opportunity, in addition to the 6 institutional level opportunities we found.
Despite Texas having the 5th largest Indigenous population, we only identified one funding opportunity, a lone institutional level scholarship.
Funding Opportunities in Arizona
Arizona has the most funding opportunities of the 5 states covered in this month’s blog, with 10 institutional level opportunities across 4 institutions. We’ve chosen to cover a few opportunities across the institutions in-depth, and encourage readers to refer to our full list of funding opportunities to learn more about the rest.
Coconino Community College (CCC) advertises the most opportunities for Indigenous students in the state with 6 different scholarships available:
- Antelope Pointe Marina Scholarship
- Banjo Billy Scholarship for Underserved Native Americans
- Beatrice Watson-Zerr Memorial Scholarship
- Bitterwater Educational Scholarship
- Loven Contracting Building Relationships Scholarship
- NARBHA Scholars Scholarship
All scholarships are managed by the CCC Foundation and are eligible to be used toward a variety of institutional fees, including tuition, books, fees, housing, and other charges deemed appropriate by the foundation. Specific requirements for each scholarship are available to determine which one(s) students can apply for.
Two of the scholarships—Loven Contracting Building Relationships Scholarship and the NARBHA Scholars Scholarship—stood out to us in particular, as they emphasize applicants needing to have an interest and commitment to careers in construction, healthcare, criminal justice, or as first responders, career areas not funded extensively in prior opportunities covered. The University of Arizona currently has two institutional level opportunities for Indigenous students, one for undergraduates and one for graduate students. Funding for graduate students is relatively rare in our inventory.
The University of Arizona/Sloan Foundation Indigenous Graduate Partnership (UA/SIGP) Scholarship is intended for graduate students pursuing a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). Other requirements to be considered for this award include being enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribe or having proof of lineage and having demonstrated financial need. Recipients of this award will have their tuition paid and receive a stipend along with other benefits. To maintain eligibility for the award, recipients must enroll in 6 credits minimum each semester they receive the award, make satisfactory progress towards their degree, and continue to demonstrate financial need.
The Arizona Native Scholars Grant for in-state undergraduate students who are verified enrolled members of one of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona. The grant, renewable for up to four years, covers important institution charges, including tuition and other mandatory fees, for eligible students. This is a last-dollar award, meaning the award is applied after all other financial aid (i.e., Pell Grant, institutional aid, merit scholarships, and other awards) is applied.
Northern Arizona University (NAU) has one institutional level opportunity. Access2Excellence is an institutional promise program that guarantees covered tuition (but not fees) for full-time undergraduate students. Typically, the guarantee is usually only available to Arizona residents who have a household income of $65,000 or less. But members of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona are eligible regardless of income or state residence.
Funding Opportunities in Nevada
Nevada has one system level funding option, which is the only system-level funding opportunity we found in the Southwest region.
The Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) provides the NSHE Native American Fee Waiver to eligible students. This waiver, which removes registration, mandatory, and laboratory fees at an NSHE institution, is available to students who meet the waiver criteria. Requirements to be considered include identifying as an Indigenous student with proof of membership or descendancy in a federally recognized tribe, being enrolled at an NSHE institution, completing the FAFSA, and having a 2.00 minimum semester GPA the term before applying if a current student. To maintain eligibility for this waiver, recipients must complete the FAFSA each year and maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.00.
As of July 1, 2023, students can be a member or descendent of any federally recognized tribe. Before 2023, this waiver was only offered to students in a Nevada-specific tribe. We applaud NSHE for extending this offer to out-of-state students.
Funding Opportunities in New Mexico
New Mexico has 7 different awards currently available—four institutional level opportunities across three institutions and one state-level.
New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with tribal governments. An MOU is essentially an agreement related to components such as support, services, conditions, and funding for a program, institution, demographic, etc. This MOU provides a tuition waiver to eligible Indigenous students enrolled at NMHU as full-time undergraduate or graduate students. Students must also submit a FAFSA and proof of tribal enrollment.
New Mexico Military Institute offers the deStwolinski Foundation Scholarship. All we know about this scholarship is that it is for Indigenous cadets, with priority given to New Mexico and Arizona residents.
Western New Mexico University (WNMU) provides four different scholarships to eligible Indigenous students currently. All four are administered through the WNMU Foundation:
New Mexico also provides the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship. This opportunity covers full tuition and fees for eligible students to attend any public institution in the state. What makes this award especially accessible for Native students is that all out of state members of an American Indian nation, tribe and pueblo, located wholly or partially in New Mexico, are also eligible for the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship (in addition to being reclassified for in-state tuition). Plus, it may be used to pursue many types of degrees, including certificates, associate’s, and bachelor’s, and includes part-time students. A list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) is available to learn more.
Funding Opportunities in Oklahoma
Oklahoma also has 7 different awards currently available. All are institutional level across four different institutions.
Bacone College has the most institutional level opportunities in the state with four total:
- Alexander Posey Award – American Indian Students
- Athletic Award – Awarded by the Head Coach – A. Posey
- Descendant Grant
- Rennard Strickland- Criminal Justice Award
Information about these awards can be found on the institution’s Scholarships & Grants webpage. Anyone who is interested should keep in mind that besides the Alexander Posey Award, the others have very specific criteria, making them only available to a small number of students.
Northeastern State University provides the Lahoma (Hicks) Schultz Native American in Psychology Scholarship to eligible students. This award is available to current undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a degree in Psychology. Academic requirements for this scholarship include being enrolled full-time and having a GPA of 3.00.
Interestingly, students must provide proof of both their Tribal enrollment and a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) card showing at least 1/8 blood quantum. This additional step increases administrative burden for both the student and program administrators.
The other funding opportunities are available at Seminole State College and Southeastern Oklahoma State University (the Native American Student Association (NASA) Senior Scholarship). We were unable to find award amounts for either of these scholarships in our search.
Funding Opportunities in Texas
Texas has a lone Indigenous funding opportunity available at the institutional level.
The Alamo Colleges District currently provides the Native American Student Alliance Scholarship. This is listed as a competitive scholarship and requirements include having a 2.50 GPA, being active in a campus organization for or supporting Indigenous people, cultures, and communities, and answering a prompt regarding commitment and support for Indigenous communities. Unfortunately, there is lack of transparency with the award amount, as is the website only notes the award “varies.”
Call to Action: Three Ways you can Support our Project
As we await the release of our publicly available website tool for students, there’s three ways you can stay involved:
- Access our draft dataset of currently identified financial aid opportunities for Indigenous students. If you see a financial aid opportunity that is no longer active, or if you are aware of any opportunities we did not include in our list, please email us to let us know!
- Keep an eye out for future snapshots throughout the year. Subscribe to the SSTAR Lab newsletter to have updates sent directly to your inbox!
- Share our posts with your networks, especially students who may be eligible for funding opportunities.
Please feel free to reach out to our project manager, Misti Jeffers (misti.jeffers@wisc.edu), if you have any questions on the project!
*Please note, as we continue to reach out to administrators directly to verify our understanding of these financial aid policies and programs, information described in this post may change prior to the release of the final dataset.