In Fairness
Tribal college leaders criticize proposal to fund nontribal institutions with 10 percent American Indian student enrollment.
By Charles Dervarics

Already facing a possible federal budget cut next year, the nation’s tribal colleges have major concerns about a new Senate plan to create a national funding stream for mainstream colleges and universities that enroll a modest percentage of American Indian students.

The plan from U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., would provide extra funding to any college and university — except tribal colleges — where American Indians account for at least 10 percent of student enrollment. The senator wants to include the plan in an upcoming Senate bill to renew the Higher Education Act.

Bingaman’s staff emphasize that the plan would not affect existing federal programs for tribally controlled colleges, which are based on federal trust lands and serve a large share of American Indians in higher education. But with the Bush administration proposing a 20 percent cut in tribal college funding, tribal college leaders say the Senate proposal is cause for alarm.

“Tribal colleges have serious concerns about this proposal, but the underlying issue is one of equity,” said Dr. David M. Gipp, president of United Tribes Technical College near Bismarck, N.D., in recent testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

For the 34 U.S. colleges in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium — most of which are small institutions in remote, high-poverty areas — the issue is one of fairness.

“This is solely a political, and not race-based, distinction. Funding of tribal colleges and universities raises no affirmative action issues,” Gipp said. But the Bingaman plan would change that policy, providing extra race-based funding for institutions that overall may not have a large minority enrollment.

The new plan would set a different precedent on government funding of American Indian students, critics say.