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
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