NEW TOWN, N.D. (AP) — On a recent chilly fall morning, Ruth De La Cruz walked through the Four Sisters Garden, looking for Hidatsa squash. To college students in her food sovereignty program, the crop might be an assignment. But to her, it is the literal fruit of her ancestors’ labor.
“There’s some of the squash, yay,” De La Cruz exclaimed as she finds the small, pumpkin-like gourds catching the morning sun.
The garden is named for the Hidatsa practice of growing squash, corn, sunflower and beans — the four sisters — together, De La Cruz said. The program is part of the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, operated by the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation.
It is one of more than three dozen tribal colleges and universities across the country that the Trump administration proposed cutting funding to earlier this year. Tribal citizens are among communities navigating the impacts of massive cuts in federal spending and the effects of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
A funding increase for tribal colleges and universities announced before the shutdown was welcome news, but college leaders remain uneasy about the government’s financial commitments. Those federal dollars are part of some of the country’s oldest legal obligations, and tribal college and university (TCU) presidents and Native education advocates worry they could be further eroded, threatening the passage of Indigenous knowledge to new generations.
“This is not just a haven for access to higher education, but also a place where you get that level of culturally, tribally specific education,” De La Cruz said.
U.S. Commitment to Native Education
When the U.S. took the land and resources of tribal nations to build the country, it promised through treaties, laws and other acts of Congress that it would uphold the health, education, and security of Indigenous peoples. Those fiduciary commitments are known today as trust responsibilities.
“We prepaid for all of this,” said Twyla Baker, the college’s president.
The U.S. may have intentionally and violently disrupted the passage of Indigenous knowledge and lifeways, Baker said, but their ancestors forced the government to promise to protect them for future generations. Those legal and moral obligations must be honored, she said.
“They carried our languages under their tongues. They carried them close to their heart. They carried these knowledge systems with them and protected them to bring them forward to us. So I feel as if I have a responsibility to do the same,” Baker said.
Today, the education pillar of the trust responsibilities takes many forms, like the hundreds of elementary schools on reservations funded by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education and the funding that pays for Native history and language classes taught at TCUs.
That funding was set to be reduced by as much as 90% in President Donald Trump’s federal budget proposal. But in September the U.S. Department of Education announced TCUs would receive an increase of over 100%. While the decision was welcomed by many, those new federal dollars came at the cost of other institutions where many Native students attend, like Hispanic-serving institutions.
An Uncertain Funding Outlook
Ahniwake Rose, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which advocates for TCUs, remarked that the increase in Department of Education funding coincides with decreases in several areas of the federal government that provide vital grants to TCUs, causing concern about overall funding stability.
In 1994, Congress passed a bill designating tribal colleges as land grant institutions, which opened them up to new sources of federal funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unlike other land grant universities, TCUs don’t share in the billions of dollars related to unceded tribal lands; instead, they rely on grants from federal agencies that support land grant universities.
However, that too has become more difficult as tribal liaisons at some federal departments have been laid off, leaving many positions unfilled.
“We’re still under a great deal of stress,” Rose said. “I don’t want people to think because we got this increase in funds that all is OK, because it’s still precarious.”
The uncertainty makes budgeting challenging, according to Leander McDonald, president of the United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota. Coupled with the current federal workforce cuts, McDonald and other TCU presidents are left second-guessing decisions regarding program creation and staffing.
“How long is the storm going to last?” he pondered.
TCU presidents like Baker and McDonald spend considerable time advocating in Washington, D.C., for both the value and necessary support for TCUs. A recent report from the American Indian Higher Education Consortium revealed that in 2023, TCUs contributed $3.8 billion to the national economy through increased student revenue and social savings related to health, justice, and income assistance.
Schools Help Preserve Traditions
Beyond higher education opportunities, TCU students are also motivated by the historical erasure of their cultures. Many believe that part of the government’s responsibility today includes providing avenues to preserve and sustain these traditions.
Learning directly from elders is integral to the Native American Studies program at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. Zaysha Grinnell, a citizen of the MHA Nation enrolled in the program, noted, “You can’t get that anywhere else. That experience, that knowledge, all of the knowledge that the ones teaching here carry.”
Many communities that held these traditional teachings were disrupted, their languages targeted, and their lands taken, underscoring the importance of trust responsibilities today, according to Mike Barthelemy, head of the college’s Native American Studies program.
