Please note FAFSA availability had significant delays last year due to the Department of Education changes. Please plan accordingly.

 Students MUST ensure they complete and submit a 2025/2026 FAFSA and email acceptable evidence before the deadline of 15Mar2025 5pm EST/EDT.  FAFSA evidence from previous years is NOT acceptable.

All the applications and documents should come from the student and not the parents. This allows the students to learn how to navigate the processes in college. It also helps reduce confusion with documents,  applications, and information. 

Scholarship funds are from two sources.  One is the Trust Fund set up for higher education.  The other is from Gaming profits as designated by the Executive Committee for higher education.  This single application will apply to both sets of funding. The policies around the use of funding may vary between the two sources.

ALL applications MUST be completed by 5 pm EST/EDT 

Saturday, March 15, 2025.

Applications received after March 1, 2025, may not be reviewed before the deadline.  If your application is incomplete, it cannot be processed.  It is the student's responsibility to complete the application and to submit the application and all correct supporing documentation.  Only complete and correct applications can be considered for CINSP funding. Late, incomplete, or incorrect applications will not be considered.  

Our volunteer committee cannot gauarantee early review of all applications. The application is open and available for five (5) months. Please complete it and correctly submit the supporting documents as early as you can. You can submit multiple times if you think something may have been incomplete or incorrect. You can ask questions. We will try to help. But the responsibility is yours and if you wait until the last few weeks, time may run out. 

**IMPORTANT --  

PLEASE SEE THE FAQs TAB FOR NEW GUIDELINES FOR CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS YEARS**

Please submit before March 1 and check back  to avoid a possibly incomplete application.  Incomplete or late applications will not be accepted. 

This can be done from any computer, including any public library, school, friends' or family's computers or on a tablet or smartphone.

This money was set-aside as a program to assist CIN citizens with attaining college educations. It is not a right, but a privilege.

This is an extremely easy scholarship to apply for--only 4 steps are required and they all have to be completed and emailed before the deadline.  NO documents can be snail mailed or dropped off to the tribe.  They will NOT be considered. 

1. Electronic application must be completed each year so we know you qualify, you need it, and where it needs to go.

2. Tribal ID card - Every year, each applicant must email a clear, readable picture of their tribal card with name, picture and tribal number easily readable. This must be emailed to cinscholarship@gmail.com.

3. FAFSA application 2025-2026 - Every year, each applicant must email a copy of the current year's FAFSA confirmation, showing the student's name, date, and confirmation/Estimated Student Aid Index  to cinscholarship@gmail.com. If you do not send confirmation or what you send does not meet these requirements, you will not qualify. Please see FAQs for more details and examples.

4. Official Transcript - Every year, each applicant must have an official transcript sent to the email cinscholarship@gmail.com.  This is provided by the school and must be official, not a screenshot.  The most recently completed semester's transcript from before the opening or closing of the application period that shows grades is what is required.  A minimum of a overall unweighted GPA of 2.0 is required. Your official transcript must show your cumulative GPA.  If you earned a GED instead of a diploma, please see our FAQ page for instructions to convert your test score into a GPA. That will help you see if you qualify. 
   For students attending schools without a GPA, the passing class will be given a value of 3.0 and failing a 0.0.  Then a GPA will be calculated based upon the number of total classes passing and failing.  A 2.0 GPA is still required to be eligible for the CIN Scholarship regardless of the school's stance on GPA. Please see our FAQ page for instructions.

If these four (4) items are not completed correctly by the deadline and sent electronically to the email, you will not qualify for the scholarship. 

You can email these three (3)-- Tribal ID card, FASFA confirmation, and official transcript to cinscholarship@gmail.com now or at any point during your application. But you have to submit them through the email for them to be counted. 

Please use an email address that uses the student name or is readily identifiable as belonging to the student (i.e. name_of_student@gmail.com) and only use that for submitting documentation or asking follow up questions. Some applications have been delayed or denied because we were unable to determine who they had come from, espcially with a single address such as the parent's submitting for multiple studnets. We have even had cases where we were unable to figure out what the email we could reach out to when we needed to ask for clarification or missing pieces.     See FAQs. 

Applications will be completed ONLY online - click the "Apply Online Now!" button at the bottom of this page.

All supporting documents must be uploaded directly to the application at the indicated places. Do not give them to the longhouse staff. They will not be accepted.

If you have any questions or concerns, please send them to the email address found on the application.  And look at our FAQ page for more information and examples of what qualifies and what does not.

All required documentation must be received NO LATER than March 15, 5 pm EST/EDT !

As a reminder, the scholarship committee is a volunteer group. As a result, they process the applications in their spare time, after their regular full-time jobs. The committee administers the application and goes through well over a hundred applications each year.  This is done with care and consideration for each applicant.  

Please keep this in mind. We are happy to help. But we need your help, too.