Tribal Colleges and Universities in the United States. Source: Research Gate, Cristobal Salinas Jr
The Trump administration has requested 22 million USD for postsecondary Indian education programs for 2026, compared to the 196 million USD appropriated for those programs in 2025.
The Trump administration’s proposed funding cuts by 90 per cent for tribal colleges and universities surprised many last week, especially for a tribal university already impacted by federal layoffs since February.
According to an Interior Department budget overview, the Trump administration has requested 22 million USD for all 37 tribal colleges and universities for 2026, compared to the 196 million USD appropriated for those programmes in 2025.
“This is incredibly concerning,” said Moriah O’Brien, who serves as the vice president of Congressional and Federal Relations for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the 35 accredited tribal colleges and universities and two developing institutions and based in Alexandria, Virginia.
TCUs receive core operational funds from three separate government agencies: Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Education. Think of the situation as a three-legged stool, O’Brien said. If even one leg is removed, the stool falls.
I think someone may have misunderstood that because TCUs receive funding from a number of different federal agencies that they could somehow make up the difference or use other resources, but it really takes those three core funding streams in order for them to keep the lights on, O’Brien said. This is absolutely critical core operational funding.
Tribal colleges and universities receive 74 per cent of their total revenue from federal funding, the consortium told ICT News during tribal college week in February.
More than 30,000 jobs are created across the local and regional economies near the tribal colleges and universities in 16 states where all these institutions are located – Montana, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Alaska, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The majority of these jobs are tied to federal funding and would affect faculty and staff positions.
This federal funding cut would impact 80% of Indian Country, the approximately 160,000 Native students and community residents that these institutions serve, plus the more than 245 federally recognized tribes that have students studying in these postsecondary institutions.
A Bureau of Indian Education spokeswoman and the Bureau of Indian Affairs public affairs office declined to comment on the president’s proposed cuts. The Department of Agriculture’s public affairs office also declined to comment.
Haskell students who learned about the president’s proposed budget cuts expressed shock and dismay at the news.
“It’s an amazing school and I think cutting the funding is way out of line, especially for Native Americans,” said Creighton Youngbird, Cheyenne Arapahoe and a sophomore paraprofessional education major.
Stopping before the Haskell dining hall, Youngbird said the university provides an affordable education to Indigenous students who might otherwise not be able to afford college. It also serves as a powerful cultural education center for Native students seeking to reconnect to their cultures.
Ryan Kingfisher, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation and a junior social work and Indigenous studies major, said he worried the cuts could force Haskell to close. “The students and the employees have been walking on egg shells knowing that we’re hanging by a thread,” he said. “I really don’t know what to think about it.”
Pe-quas Hernandez, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and a junior environmental sciences major, also expressed concern about Haskell losing its accreditation.
She said it’s taken nearly three months for the university to start to heal from the March 14 layoffs. She said the layoffs generated significant support for Haskell as tribes and other donors stepped forward to help provide funds to keep the university operating. “I think that we carried on just fine. We had our tribes pulling together for us,” she said. “I have a lot of hope that we’re going to be able to continue what we’ve been doing here.”
Haskell President Frank Arpan, who recently announced his decision to leave the university, declined to comment recently regarding the proposed cuts, referring an ICT reporter to the Bureau of Indian Education, which also declined to comment. IAIA’s board of trustees and administration released a statement on social media (https://www.instagram.com/p/DKf9ZkfRMbW/) on Wednesday, June 4.
The IAIA Board of Trustees and administration reject this ill-conceived and harmful proposal. Trump would erase nearly 63 years of progress in American Indian and Alaska Native higher education, artistic expression, and Congressional support for IAIA, the only institution of its kind. As the birthplace of contemporary Native arts, we cannot let this happen.
Source: Alaska Beacon