The Pelican First-Generation Scholarship (the "Scholarship") is funded and run by Pelican Family Office, the business name of Pelican Advisory LLC, 681 River Highland Blvd, Covington, Louisiana 70433 (the "Sponsor"). Submitting an application means you accept these rules.
1. Free to enter
There is no fee to apply. No purchase, payment, donation, account or client relationship with the Sponsor or anyone else is required to apply or to be selected, and none is considered. Applying does not make you a client of the Sponsor and does not create an advisory relationship of any kind.
2. Who is eligible
To be eligible, an applicant must meet all of the following at the time of application:
- First-generation status. The applicant is a first-generation college student, which for this Scholarship means that neither parent or guardian completed a four-year (bachelor's) degree. An applicant who is unsure how this definition applies to their family may email the Sponsor at [email protected] before the deadline; asking has no effect on selection.
- Enrollment. The applicant is enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited college or university in the United States, in any field of study.
- Not excluded. The applicant is not an owner, officer or employee of the Sponsor, and is not a member of the immediate family or household of one.
There is no essay, no minimum grade point average and no field-of-study requirement. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.
3. Confirming eligibility
First-generation status is confirmed by the applicant's own statement on the application (self-attestation). The Sponsor does not request family income information, tax returns, parents' academic records or any financial document from any applicant, and will not do so. Enrollment is confirmed with the selected recipient's college or university before payment. An applicant whose statement is found to be false is disqualified, and any award already paid on the basis of a false statement may be reclaimed.
The Sponsor also administers the Pelican Family Office Scholarship, a separate program with its own rules. An eligible student may apply to both programs. Each program is decided on its own.
4. Dates
- Applications close: January 15, 2027.
- Recipient announced: February 10, 2027.
Each person may submit one application per cycle. An application that arrives after the deadline is not entered. The Scholarship is awarded every year; each cycle's dates are published on this website.
5. How to apply
The only valid way to apply is the form reached from the apply page of this website. A listing of the Scholarship on a college, university, first-generation program, TRIO program or scholarship-directory website is informational only, and anything submitted anywhere other than the official form is not an application. An applicant who cannot use the form, for accessibility or any other reason, may email [email protected] before the deadline to arrange another way to submit; asking has no effect on selection.
6. Selection
After the deadline, one recipient is selected from all complete applications from eligible applicants. Since there is no essay and no grade requirement, nothing in an application is scored or ranked, and whether an applicant or an applicant's family has any relationship with the Sponsor is not considered. Selection is carried out by the Sponsor's scholarship administrators under a single method applied in the same way to every eligible application, and the result is recorded. Decisions about eligibility and selection rest with the Sponsor and are final.
7. Contacting the recipient, confirming enrollment and paying the award
- The Sponsor contacts the selected applicant by email and phone, using the details on their application.
- Before payment, the Sponsor confirms with the recipient's college or university that the recipient is enrolled. If enrollment cannot be confirmed, or the recipient fails to reply within the time stated in the notification, the Sponsor may select an alternate recipient by the same process.
- The award is $2,500, paid once, in the manner described in the notification, ordinarily to the recipient or to the recipient's institution for educational expenses. The award cannot be transferred to another person or exchanged for anything else.
8. Taxes
A scholarship award may be taxable income for the recipient under U.S. federal and state law, depending on how the money is used. Any tax is the recipient's responsibility. The Sponsor gives no tax advice through this program; recipients should consult their own tax professional.
9. Publicity
The Sponsor announces each cycle's recipient on the winners page. A recipient's name, school and photo are published only with the recipient's written consent, given after selection. The Sponsor does not publish statements, quotations or comments from recipients about the Sponsor or the Scholarship. A recipient who declines all publicity still receives the full award. Whatever the recipient chooses, the Sponsor publishes that the year's award was made and that enrollment was confirmed.
10. Applicant information
Application information is used only to run the Scholarship, as set out in the applicant privacy notice, which forms part of these rules. It is not used to market the Sponsor's services and is not sold.
11. A recurring program
The Scholarship is awarded every year. Each cycle is separate: an application counts only for the cycle in which it is submitted, and a student who is not selected may apply again in a later cycle while still eligible. The Sponsor intends to run the program each year but may end it after any completed cycle by posting a notice on this website.
12. General terms
- The Sponsor may disqualify any application that is incomplete, duplicated, altered, submitted by an ineligible person or made in violation of these rules.
- If events beyond the Sponsor's control prevent the Scholarship from running as planned, the Sponsor may change the dates or the process by posting a notice on this website.
- Louisiana law governs these rules, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.
- If any part of these rules is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
Questions about the rules
Email [email protected]. For the 2026-27 cycle, the rules on this page are the ones that apply.
Sponsored by Pelican Family Office (Pelican Advisory LLC), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Applying is free, and applying creates no client or advisory relationship.