Deal or No Deal?

Tribal colleges are a convenient and affordable option for many non-Native students, but the benefits don’t necessarily go both ways.

By Mary Annette Pember

Education at a tribal college for non-Native students is “an awfully good deal for states,” says Dr. Joseph F. McDonald (Salish/Kootenai), president of Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead reservation in Montana.

It may come as a surprise to most Americans, but tribal colleges have been quietly providing higher education to a substantial number of non-Native, so called “non-beneficiary,” students for many years, despite the fact that they receive no state or federal funding for these students. Operational funding for the colleges is provided through the Tribally Controlled College and University Assistance Act, which mandates that the colleges maintain an open-door policy for all students, regardless of race.

Federal funding for tribal colleges is based on the number of enrolled students who are members of a federally recognized tribe. Non-beneficiary students don’t show up on those lists, and so don’t figure into the budgetary formula. Funding for these students is derived primarily from tuition, which is usually significantly less than comparable state institutions. But tuition often just barely covers the costs of educating the non-beneficiary students, placing a tremendous burden on the already cash-strapped colleges. States have been slow to pick up the slack, as to date only Arizona, Montana and Nebraska have provided any financial allocation to tribal colleges for the education of non-Native students.

As many as 20 percent of today’s tribal college students are classified as non-beneficiary, according to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Robyn Hiestand, the project manager of AIHEC’s American Indian Measures for Success data collection system, says the number appears to be growing at the rate of about 1 percent per year.