Education | Bay Mills

Bay Mills Education Department

Shannon Belk, Director (located in the tribal administration building)

sbelk@baymills.org

Higher Education Incentive Program

The Bay Mills Indian Community Higher Education Incentive Program is designed to provide financial awards of achievement to tribal members in pursuit of degrees of higher learning. The incentive program is available to Bay Mills tribal members attending accredited post-secondary institutions providing undergraduate and graduate degrees of study, as well as those institutions providing trade and technical school degrees/certifications.

Don't forget to fill out your FAFSA!

K-12 Chromebook Lending Program

The Chromebook Lending Program is targeted to assist K-12 Bay Mills tribal member students who cannot get a Chromebook from school, or those who lack access to an at-home laptop or computer. Parents please only request one if your child lacks access to either of these options.

The student must be a Bay Mills tribal member and actively enrolled in a local EUP school in grades K-12. The Chromebook and charger are on loan and remain the property of the Bay Mills Indian Community.

Parents can reserve a Chromebook for their child by emailing a request to sbelk@baymills.org Reservations will be available at the start of each school year, as long as there are Chromebooks available.

Parents/Students interested in borrowing a Chromebook must complete the Chromebook Loan Agreement Form.

HOW TO FIND SCHOLARSHIPS

There are more than 3 million private scholarships in the U.S. according to Sallie Mae. They give away $9 billion a year in scholarship money. Students who are over the $30,000 limit for family income for Financial Aid may have to rely on these sources for much of their college expenses. The major other alternative sources of funds are work/self-help and loans.

Remember DON'T JUST LOOK ONLY FOR NATIVE AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIPS. If you look only for the Native American scholarships you are looking at only one-tenth of one percent (0.001) of the scholarships universe. DON'T FORGET THE OTHER 99.9%, which is where almost all the money is.

Use all the keywords that apply to you--honors, awards, hobbies, work experience, clubs elected positions, appointed positions, and your major. For instance, a female who is going into nursing should have the following and more keywords (the more the better): woman, female, Native American, American Indian, Indian, minority, nursing, nursing care, health care, medical care, health administration, Dean's list, Honor Roll, Candy Striper volunteer, Science Club, Science Achievement Award, hospital volunteer, vice president of Student Council, etc.

The best websites on the Internet are www.fastweb.com, www.scholarships.com

There are several dozen internet sites, but Fastweb has over 1,500,000 entries in its database. Sallie Mae has over 3.0 million entries in its database. Fewer than 100 of these are Native American scholarships, and out of these 100, only seven have large amounts of money to give. Which are: the Gates Millennium Scholarships, the American Indian College Fund (AICF), the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), Catching the Dream, the American Indian Education Foundation, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and the Association on American Indian Affairs. The total giving of these seven is less than 6 million a year.

Here are the links to the seven: