When the Tohono O'Odham Nation's surveyed its members last year about barriers that they faced to obtaining a college degree, recurring themes kept cropping up. The nearest college to the Sells, Arizona community was more than an hour's drive away. Moving to a city with a college was not an option for others. And many found the high cost of big-city rent prohibitive.

Tribal leaders in this southwest Arizona desert town, located near the U.S.-Mexico border, believe they have a solution. They plan to open a tribal college offering two-year degrees.

We're already looking for someone that has a really strong background and experience as a college president," says Rosilda Manuel, the tribe's director of education.

If the Tohono O'Odham Nation succeeds in its quest, the planned new institution would be the nation's thirty-second tribal-run college. Most tribal schools are community colleges.

Arizona has nineteen other public community colleges and one other tribal college -- Navajo Community College in northern Arizona. But the proposed Tohono O'Odham tribal college is not a done deal. Several hurdles still must be overcome.

The tribe hopes to get a few classes started by this fall if the new school is approved by the Tohono O'Odham Nation's tribal council. The ambitious project falls in step with a national trend that has seen more and more of the country's Native American tribes developing their own higher education programs.

Native American education leaders say the tribal higher education institutions fill a unique niche on the reservation. The colleges offer culturally appropriate classes to thousands of people who otherwise would not receive an education because they lack the transportation or funds needed to attend elsewhere.

"When the first group of tribal colleges was established, the founding tribal college presidents all thought that within twenty-five years there would be a tribal college on every American Indian reservation in the United States," says Dr. Gerald "Catty" Monette, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.

"The growth of the tribal college movement has been steady and, with the enduring success and achievement of so many of our colleges, more and more tribes are founding their own tribal colleges to serve the unique needs of their own communities," says Monette, who also is president of Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, N.D.

Building a Reality ...

The decision to create a community college here on the sprawling Tohono O'Odham reservation, which is about the same size as the state of Connecticut, followed a survey that was distributed to the tribe's 20,000 members about a year ago. Then, each of the tribe's eleven districts held meetings to discuss the issue. At each meeting, members described the hardships imposed for those who wanted to pursue a higher education.

"Our students were not used to being away from home," says, Manuel. "It was especially a culture Shock to have to pay $650 for an apartment and learn that it doesn't include utilities.

"People say they would have to learn to budget and live within their means as well as having to worry about passing classes," she adds. "In the long run, too many were dropping out."

In the past, according to Manuel, only about 20 percent of those who left the reservation to attend college returned with any sort of degree. Worse yet, many of those who did succeed decided to stay in their adopted cities rather than return to help improve their home community. After reviewing the survey results and listening to member suggestions, the tribal council decided it needed its own higher education program.

Because American Indian tribes still exist as sovereign nations, there was only one official hurdle. Federal officials require tribes that want to open their own colleges to have a mentor school. In this case, the Pima County Community College District, which has been offering a few classes here in Sells, agreed to oversee the development of the new school. Currently, 250 students from the Sells area are enrolled in Pima's program.

The University of Arizona -- located in Tucson, the nearest major city also has indicated it will lend assistance of some sort, tribal officials say.

"They're holding our hand," says tribal member Jacque Armstrong, who has taught accounting classes for the Pima college district and hopes to teach for the new tribal college.

Armstrong Says she was one of the members of the tribe who was forced to travel long distances to attend classes in order to receive her college degree. But getting rid of long drives will not be the only advantage students will have in a more familiar learning environment, she says.

"Sometimes people will ask questions in our classes here in the Tohono O'Odham language if they're more comfortable with it," Armstrong says.

Twenty-year-old Marion Ben is just one of many tribal members who is eager to see the much-needed community college get started.

"I'm already saving what I can get," says Ben, who works in the tribe's human resources department. "Every pay day, I put aside what I can afford. Hopefully, by the time the college is established, I'll have enough to start."

For Ben, who attended classes in Tucson at Chaparral Career College for about a year, the new college is an opportunity to get her education back on track.

"If I want to get anywhere in life or in the workforce, I know I need the educational background to do that," Ben says. "This will benefit a lot of people."

Behind the scenes, the Tohono O'Odham Nation's tribal council is examining funding issues, according to a tribal spokesperson who declined to be identified. The tribe projects that it will have to come up with about $10 million for the first five years. The council stands ready to commit to two years of operating costs from its savings accounts and pay for capital and construction COSTS. '

The tribe is not enormously wealthy, but it does have a steady flow of income from 500 slot machines, a card room, and a bingo hall located at a gambling operation in Tucson. The tribe also imposes sales taxes on businesses and a tax on all tobacco sold within its two-million-acre territory, something it can do because of its sovereign nation status.

RELATED ARTICLE: Factoids: Tribal Colleges

Thirty-one tribal colleges belong to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. There are several more higher education programs on other reservations, but officials are not sure how many.

There are more than 550 federally recognized tribes, and slightly more than 200 have gambling operations. But only a handful of the gambling operations bring in huge revenues.

About 25,000 students from 250 federally recognized tribes attend the tribal colleges.

Only 2 percent of those who attend tribal colleges do not qualify for some sort of need-based financial aid.

The average tribal college student is twenty-seven years old.

The average entry-level salary for a tribal college graduate is $18,000,

Tribal colleges were created over the past twenty-years to serve the unique needs in different American Indian communities. All American Indian tribes have different cultures, traditions and religions. Some share common languages with slight differences in dialect or word meaning.

Tribal colleges were given federal land-grant status in 1994.

Tribal college graduates who transfer to four-year schools are more likely to attain four-year degrees than other American Indian students.

Source: American Indian Higher Education Consortium