Experts gathered during a webinar on Wednesday hosted by the College Fund in partnership with the Brookings Institution and the Institute of Higher Education
Dr. Leander McDonald
The report, “Native Higher Education Success Strategies: Strengthening Policies, Respecting Tribal Sovereignty, and Leveraging Data to Address the Decline in Native American Higher Education Enrollment,” identifies strong barriers, including systemic underfunding, data challenges and lack of policy support for Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU) and Native-serving institutions. Recent laws targeting diversity efforts have made the challenges even more difficult, creating additional barriers for Native students to succeed.
The decline in Native American enrollment in higher education was one of the key issues discussed during the webinar. According to Robert Maxim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Native American student enrollment has dropped by 40% since the 2010-2011 school year. The statistic highlights the urgency needed in addressing the educational crisis for Native communities. The decline, he said, is partly attributed to the systemic flaws in how data is collected and represented, adding that the 2010-2011 school year is so significant because it was the first time students were allowed to identify as more than one race in higher ed data.
“Native American people are multi-racial and multi-ethnic at higher rates than any other group in the U.S,” said Maxim, who criticized how the Department of Education collects and aggregates data leading to confusion about how much of the decline in Native students is due to them attending college at low rates, “or being counted as something else in public data.” Maxim added that about 80% of Native students get classified into a category other than American Indian or Alaska Native in federal education data making it difficult to understand the scope of the problem and develop sound policies.
