Aleut & Bering Straights, scholarship deadlines arrive this summer

Two Alaska Native corporations are reminding their students of fast-approaching scholarship deadlines this summer — and behind those routine reminders sits one of the quieter, more durable legacies of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: corporations born from a land settlement now funding the education of the generations that came after.

The Bering Straits Native Corporation's Beringia Settlement Trust scholarship closes June 30 for the fall term. It's not a small program. Since 1991, BSNC says it has put more than $5.7 million toward the college and vocational goals of its shareholders and their descendants — money that flows from a settlement trust the corporation created in part for exactly this purpose, alongside elder benefits and cultural programs. The eligibility itself tells the ANCSA story: applicants must be original shareholders or their direct lineal descendants, the bloodline reaching forward from the people first enrolled when the corporation was formed. To ease the paperwork, BSNC's scholarship now runs through a shared regional application — pooled with Sitnasuak, Kawerak, Nome Eskimo Community, and the region's health and economic-development corporations — so a student fills out one form instead of chasing six.

About a month later, on July 31, two more deadlines arrive on the other side of the state. The Aleut Corporation — through what's now its Ulakaia Center, named for the tallest hill on St. George Island in the Pribilofs — runs a general fall and spring scholarship plus the $12,500 Dave Nevzuroff Accounting Scholarship, a single award reserved for a student majoring in accounting or finance. Both are open to Aleut shareholders and registered descendants, and the foundation's stated purpose is blunt about its priorities: "Funding education for the Aleut people."

The practical message for students is simple: BSNC's fall deadline is June 30, and the Aleut deadlines fall July 31 at noon Alaska time. Both corporations point applicants to their shareholder portals to verify eligibility before applying.