1. Our work
  2. Indigenous Scholarships Portal

About the Program

The Indigenous Scholarships Portal aims to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ access to financial support and resources, so they are better able to achieve their education and career aspirations. Our free, monthly e-newsletter provides scholarship updates and features stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success.

Launched in late 2016, the Portal does this by:

  1. Making scholarships easy to find 
  2. Providing clear steps and useful resources on How to Apply 
  3. Simplifying the scholarship application process for applications through our Portal, students can apply to multiple scholarships in a few clicks

– all in a culturally safe online community.

The Need

We know:

  • The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who graduate is much less than it should be: of those who start university, less than half complete their studies.
     
  • Over 25% cite financial pressure as a key reason for discontinuing.
     
  • Yet over $60 million  in financial support is available.
     

“It’s not a lack of resources but a lack of connection”

The support is there, but it isn’t always accessible. Scholarships have been hard to find, applying complex and support is not always available for the areas of study students seek.

Our Impact

850+
listings
$60million
value
48,000+
unique visitors so far

Our Approach

The Indigenous Scholarships Portal exists to connect students to available support in a simple and easy way.

  1. We join the dots: we research student support to understand what’s available and what’s missing
  2. We create innovative resources and tools providing information and inspiration
  3. We collaborate with others to increase our collective impact

Innovative Portal functionalities:

  • Match Service: students respond to 9 simple questions generating their list of potential scholarships 
  • Secure individual Profile: students can record information and save documents required for scholarship applications
  • Simplified scholarship application process by:
    • Reducing the locations for applications
    • Saving application responses in the individual Profile, these then pre-fill responses ready for tailoring to future scholarship applications. 
  • Our (free) monthly e-newsletter inspires further education with stories Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ success and scholarship updates.