(a) There is hereby created a special fund in the Treasury of the United States Virgin Islands to be known as the “Territorial Scholarship Fund”. The said fund shall be available for the granting of scholarships and loans to such persons and on such conditions and shall be comprised and managed in the form and manner as hereinafter provided in this chapter.
(b) The Territorial Scholarship Fund shall be comprised of all such funds, donations, gifts, devises, bequests, and all other kinds of contributions of real or personal property, from persons, corporations, partnerships, trust funds, charitable or other eleemosynary organizations, domestic, national or foreign, as may be made to the said fund from time to time and any other sums covered into the fund pursuant to law, as well as any contributions to the said funds as may be appropriated by the Legislature.
(c) The Commissioner of Finance shall be the trustee of the fund and shall be authorized to accept for the fund any contributions thereto. He shall manage the fund in such manner as to preserve its pecuniary value, and shall invest such funds as are not needed for current obligations, plus a reasonable reserve, in first priority mortgages or United States government bonds, and shall convert any of the real or personal property into cash if such action will enhance the value of the assets of the fund, and do all other lawful things to increase or preserve the assets of the fund.
(d) The trustee shall make such scholarship grants and loans out of the Territorial Scholarship Fund as may be authorized by the Virgin Islands Board of Education.
(e) To perpetuate the fund provided for in this section, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated annually, out of any available funds in the Treasury of the United States Virgin Islands, a sum of not less than $15,000, to be included in the budget of the Government and paid into the said fund for disposition in accordance with law.
(f) The Virgin Islands Board of Education is authorized to utilize any unawarded and unexpended special legislative grants in any fiscal year for the Territorial Scholarship Fund in successive fiscal years. The Virgin Islands Board of Education shall submit a list of all unawarded and unexpended grants to the Legislature not later than 30 days after the end of each fiscal year.
(g) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (c) of this section, the Virgin Islands Board of Education in furtherance of subsection (b) of this section, is empowered to negotiate and execute contracts or agreements with corporations which are recognized as nonprofit or eleemosynary by the Internal Revenue Service programs under which such nonprofit corporation or corporations will grant or endorse scholarship grants and loans of the type and nature authorized to be made out of the Territorial Scholarship Fund by this chapter and, in connection with such contract or contracts, the Virgin Islands Board of Education is authorized to make such deposits with said nonprofit corporation or corporations out of the Territorial Scholarship Fund as may be necessary in order to induce said nonprofit corporation or corporations to enter into such contract or contracts; provided, however, that the aggregate amount of any such deposits in any fiscal year shall not exceed a sum established and approved by the Legislature.
(h) The Board of Education is authorized to expend annually out of the Territorial Scholarship Fund such monies not to exceed $20,000 for the administrative costs as described in section 176(d) of this title for the collection of loans.