Recovery of scandium from mined red mud includes adding an acid to a quantity of red mud for converting oxides in the red mud, and roasting the quantity of red mud for decomposing compounds having low thermal stability, typically iron and titanium. Water is added to the roasted red mud for leaching the converted oxides into a leach liquor mixture including scandium and other dissolved rare earths, and the leach liquor mixture is agitated by sonication or ball milling to increase an exposed surface area of red mud particles in the leach liquor. PH of the leach liquor is adjusted to precipitate the rare earths while leaving the scandium in solution in the leach liquor, followed by precipitating the separated scandium oxalate remaining in the leach liquor by reducing the pH and adding oxalic acid. Precipitated scandium oxalate may then be filtered from the leach liquor.