Vital yet undervalued: Funding shortfalls stunt growth, progress at Montana tribal colleges

Yahoo

27-01-2025

Carly Graf and Nora MabieThe Missoulian
This is the final story in a series 'Education for a nation' observing the vital roles Tribal Colleges and Universities play in revitalizing language and culture, and fueling local workforces and economies in Montana.
Republished with permission from The Missoulian.
BOZEMAN — It was February 1978. A handful of tribal college leaders convened in Washington, D.C., to advocate for legislation that would forever change tribal communities nationwide.
While a few Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) had sprung up around the country — including Blackfeet Community College and Fort Peck Community College in Montana — the institutions teetered on shoestring budgets. Classes were held in church basements, trailers or school gymnasiums.
What would become the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act guaranteed federal funding for the institutions, which provided essential education and cultural revitalization in their communities.
Tribal leaders had long told Congress that TCUs were chronically underfunded. Mainstream lawmakers in D.C. offered fierce opposition, suggesting the bill was a waste of money.
Wayne Stein traveled to the Capitol as a tribal college advocate. He distinctly remembers a meeting with a White House staffer — and not because it was a positive experience.
When asked how she came to oversee the issue, a legislative staffer told the group she'd been assigned domestic issues starting with the letters 'H,' 'I' and 'J.' The tribal college bill fell under 'I' for 'Indian.'
'All of us were looking at each other,' Stein recalled. 'I remember thinking, 'Holy crap. Holy crap. This can't be real.' But she didn't even blink. … So then we proceeded to educate her about Indians and tribal colleges.'
It took extensive advocacy, education and politicking, but President Jimmy Carter signed the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act into law that October.
'Without (it), there wouldn't be any tribal colleges, hardly,' Stein told the Montana State News Bureau.
The federal bill ensured TCUs survived, but not that they thrived. Today, more than 40 years later, tribal colleges remain chronically underfunded compared with community colleges or Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Year after year they're asked to do more with less.
While the injection of federal coronavirus relief dollars offered a glimpse of what's possible when these schools are adequately resourced, future funding remains in limbo. Tribal leaders in Montana expect continued funding debates during this year's legislative session, and there is growing concern over federal dollars with a new presidential administration set to take over.
Tribal colleges rely on a complicated mix of funding sources. Getting enough money requires relentless self-advocacy and scrupulous accounting of the government budget process.
Administrators say they fight for every dollar they get from federal or state lawmakers, but still must rely on a patchwork of grants and private funding sources to keep the lights on. Trappings of the classic college campus are swapped for humble facilities. Endowments are replaced by deferred maintenance costs as a budget line.
'We're not known beyond the states that we serve,' said David Yarlott, who served as president of Little Big Horn College for 22 years. 'We always have to go out and promote ourselves and try to convince other representatives and senators about our importance.'
TCUs receive on average roughly 70 percent of their total funding from the federal government. Congress also offers funding to a host of minority-serving higher education institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Unique to tribal colleges, though, is the federal government's trust responsibility — codified by dozens of treaties — to provide education to tribes. The 1978 law maps out a formula, albeit obscure, for how much funding tribal colleges should receive.
Most of the federal dollars for tribal colleges flow through the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). The law calls for the colleges to receive $8,000 for every 'full-time enrolled Indian student,' adjusted for inflation year-over-year. But Congress has failed to fund colleges at that level for decades.
What's more, the BIE doesn't even spend all the money it's authorized to use. When congressional authorization increased the amount of money the BIE could spend on each Indian student from $6,000 to $8,000 between 2005 and 2015, the agency only upped its per-student spending from $4,447 to $6,355.
State legislatures are not required by law to provide any funding for tribal colleges, and most do not choose to.
Recognizing persistent gaps between operational costs and federal funding, President Joe Biden established a commission to improve tribal colleges in 2021. Yet the BIE budget for the 2024 fiscal year included a meager $87.9 million to be disbursed among 29 tribal colleges nationally.
TCU leaders say their federal allocation comes under threat with each new presidential administration.
Janine Pease, founding president of Little Big Horn College, said teachers had to take second jobs during the Reagan years.
'We're talking about this little drop in the bucket,' Pease said of federal allocations. 'And we're saying, 'Please, give us two drops!''
The Montana Legislature does not provide any additional funding for these American Indian students; however, it is one of only a few state governments that gives tribal colleges money for non-Native students — allocating up to $3,280 per enrolled non-Native student.
Because the state allocates less money per non-Native student than the federal government allocates per Native student, TCUs with greater shares of non-Native students — like Salish Kootenai College and Fort Peck Community College — ultimately receive less total funding to cover their costs than TCUs that enroll greater numbers of Native American students.
Members of Montana's American Indian Caucus and other supportive lawmakers have tried to make the case for why the state should increase funding for TCUs.
Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, D-Browning, proposed legislation in 2021 that would have made $3,280, the current non-beneficiary ceiling, the minimum allocation per non-Native student. It also created an adjustment to make sure funding rose with inflationary costs.
By comparison, the Legislature funds full-time resident students at three of Montana's community colleges at roughly double the rate.
Running Wolf's bill ultimately died in committee.
'To me, it (felt like) they didn't even hear what I had to say,' he recalled. 'It was like they had already figured out they were going to kill it. … Maybe it was a misunderstanding or maybe it was just the atmosphere of that (legislative) session.'
Sen. Susan Webber, D-Browning, says the unequal funding for tribal colleges 'comes down to discrimination.'
'The Montana University System never thought that Indians could achieve a higher education or a higher degree,' she said. 'So they never bothered to put a school here, and now they're discriminating against us because we had to go to different measures to get a school on an Indian reservation.'
Webber said there's a misconception among lawmakers that tribes will mismanage state funds, despite TCUs being subject to audits and accreditation like any other higher education institution.
'We have an annual audit, everything…,' she said. 'Yet, they walk in and say we'll mismanage funds. Do they say that to the Montana University System? Do they say that to Bozeman? No.'
While many colleges can raise tuition rates to close the gap between operational costs and public funding, that's not a good option for tribal colleges.
The average cost to attend a tribal college in Montana is notably lower than what an in-state resident would pay to enroll at any MUS campus.
Most students at TCUs face significant economic barriers such as extremely high rates of poverty and unemployment, a report from the American Council on Education says. An overwhelming majority are eligible for federal assistance based on income, but getting a loan is no easy feat in Indian Country.
TCU grads are also less likely to earn high incomes and donate back to their alma mater, striking another funding stream that more mainstream colleges might enjoy.
Stretched paper-thin, tribal colleges turn to nonprofits and foundations to close the gaps. Faculty and staff — already making less than they could at a community college, for example — take on the added burden of grant writing. Survival hinges on running dozens of ongoing grants at the same time.
'It's easy to get nostalgic, but once you start doing the work — which requires dealing with multiple systems: State, private, nonprofit — it's hard to get the funding,' said Elijah Hopkins from Fort Peck Community College.
While the pandemic devastated tribal communities — killing Native Americans in Montana at a rate about 12 times greater than their white neighbors — it showed what's possible for tribal colleges when money is no issue.
Tribal colleges received hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief. Awash with cash, they could pay for things that had only ever been ideas.
Blackfeet Community College forgave old tuition debt, purchased laptops for students and paid for broadband access. Chief Dull Knife College reduced and, in some cases, eliminated tuition fees. Fort Peck Community College invested in improved online teaching options. Stone Child College actually paid people to go to school.
'When you look at larger universities, they didn't spend their COVID funds directly on students,' said Karla Bird, the then-president of BCC. 'They probably thought about their funding in a different way than tribal colleges did.'
Across the colleges, enrollment increased — even boomed, according to administrators. At FPCC, around 700 students participated in some kind of schooling. It led to the largest graduating class in the school's nearly 50-year history.
'I think what is a really unique narrative is you see success rates at tribal colleges during COVID that you don't see at other universities,' Bird said. 'One of their questions was, 'Why?' And to me, it's because tribal colleges finally received resources.'
When their communities were in crisis, people flocked to the local tribal college for support. It showed what TCU graduates and staff have long known — these campuses transcend the education they provide. They serve as the backbone of their communities, a trusted place where people can ask for help and receive it.
But as those federal dollars dried up, so too did the enrollment boom. At FPCC and elsewhere, the number of students has since dropped, leaving staff with a visceral example of the promise of TCUs but without the funds to reach it.
TCUs serve as a springboard for more opportunity, both for the students who attend and the systems with which they interact. Past and present threats to tribal college resources — including some uncertainty about how the Montana Legislature might reduce funds in the next biennium budget — suggest this impact may not be fully appreciated by some.
Students can earn credits to eventually enter the Montana University System (MUS) and the more specialized degrees it offers. Some students will earn their associate's degree at a tribal college then head to an MUS campus off the reservation for a bachelor's. Agreements allow for credit-sharing so students don't have to repeat classes they already took.
Others take advantage of '2+2' pathways. Students complete the first two years of a program at a tribal college and finish their degree at a four-year campus. Examples include social work degrees, business entrepreneurship and early childhood education.
Cecilia Helgeson, for example, studies environmental studies at Aaniiih Nakoda College on the Fort Belknap Reservation. She dreams of going to MSU Northern or MSU Bozeman for animal science and eventually make her way to veterinary school. Helgeson wants to return to the reservation to work as a vet with large animals to help people like her grandpa and uncle who must travel 45 minutes to the closest clinic.
'You look around now, it's amazing how many Native American people have college degrees, not only associate's or bachelor's but there are master's degrees and doctorate degrees,' said Carol Juneau, who was instrumental in the founding of Blackfeet Community College.
Opportunity isn't only defined by a four-year degree, a reality TCUs understand better than most.
Many jobs require a high school diploma. Native students attending high schools on reservations are less likely to graduate and more likely to drop out as compared with non-Native peers.
To address the disparity, the 2019 Legislature awarded each of the seven tribal colleges in Montana with one-time only funding of $25,000 to support HiSET, the state's high school equivalency exam.
Results varied. Completion rates ranged from 20 percent to 88 percent depending on the tribal college. Administrators told lawmakers in September 2024 that the current HiSET allocation wasn't enough to pay for the salary of a test proctor. They said some enrollees struggled to pay for gas or balance a full-time job with the exam prep, while others would pause studies to help with family crises.
Rather than brainstorm fixes to challenges, policymakers proposed slashing funding for HiSET at TCUs this biennium — a move that has drawn criticism from tribal college advocates. The suggestion is reflected in Gov. Greg Gianforte's budget proposal that will be debated during this legislative session.
A spokesperson from the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education said the recommendation comes from legislators who sat on the interim education budget committee.
OCHE has suggested in the past that it may be more sensible for ongoing HiSET funding to flow through a separate adult education program overseen by the state rather than through tribal colleges, the spokesperson said.
Members of the Montana American Indian Caucus suggested they would fight to fund the HiSET program during budget negotiations, calling the proposed cuts another example of the government's quick willingness to take resources from Indian Country rather than spend money to support it.
This story was created with the support of the Higher Education Media Fellowship at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. The Fellowship supports new reporting into issues related to postsecondary career and technical education.