FARGO, N.D. (AP) – A charitable trust established by the late hotel and real estate baroness Leona Helmsley is giving North Dakota State University $750,000 to create an endowed scholarship fund for graduate students in American Indian public health.

The state of North Dakota is providing another $375,000 through its Higher Education Challenge Fund, which provides matching funds for efforts to advance academics.

Officials bill the NDSU master’s program launched last year as the only one in the country designed specifically to prepare graduates to work with Native American populations. The scholarship fund will provide four scholarships of about $10,000 each year, the first of which will go out for the fall 2016 semester.

“The Trust is delighted to support NDSU in this pioneering effort to develop and sustain the workforce of health professionals who are committed to serve American Indians, perhaps the most medically underserved population in the nation,” Shelley Stingley, program director of The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust’s Rural Healthcare Program, said in a statement Monday.

The scholarship fund will help students financially and benefit underserved citizens, Program Director Donald Warne said.

“People in rural areas, especially American Indians, often have difficulty accessing quality health services because of lower-than-average incomes, geographic isolation and a severe shortage of health professionals,” he said. “Many of the students in this program are from underserved communities right here in North Dakota, and their plans are to go back and work with those populations.”