PHOTO COURTESY OF WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY VANCOUVER
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PHOTO COURTESY OF WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY VANCOUVER
For decades, Native American students have faced a paradox in American higher education: they are simultaneously overrepresented in discussions about educational equity yet severely undercounted in the data systems designed to support them. This statistical invisibility has created what researchers are now calling a “crisis” — one that threatens not only individual student success but also the federal government’s ability to meet its legal obligations to tribal nations.
The numbers tell a sobering story. Since 2010, colleges nationwide have lost nearly one-fifth of their students. But Native American students have experienced something far more catastrophic: a 37% enrollment decline over the same period — more than double the national average. Yet even these alarming figures may understate the problem, obscured by federal data collection practices that systematically erase Native identities from official records.
The root of this crisis lies in how the U.S. Department of Education collects and reports racial and ethnic data. Current federal standards employ what researchers call “topcoding” for Latino or Hispanic students, meaning any student with Latino or Hispanic identity is automatically categorized as such, regardless of their other racial identities. Similarly, students who identify as Native American and any other race are lumped into a catch-all “more than one race” category, with no further detail about their specific identities.
While these rules apply universally, they disproportionately harm Native American students because Native people are categorized as Latino or Hispanic and multiracial at higher rates than any other major demographic group. The result is a statistical shell game that makes Native students disappear from datasets designed to support them.
The consequences of this undercounting are far-reaching. A 2023 study by the American Institutes for Research found that up to 70% of all American Indian/Alaska Native students nationwide were undercounted in public education over a four-year period. In Washington state alone, this translated to nearly 36,000 missing students and a potential loss of nearly $12 million annually in funding for school districts serving those students.
More than numbers
The statistical invisibility of Native students creates problems that extend well beyond funding formulas. Without accurate data, tribal governments cannot track how their citizens are faring in higher education. Native-serving organizations and researchers cannot measure outcomes or identify trends. And institutions themselves may misunderstand the size and needs of their Native student populations, leading to inadequate support services, insufficient scholarships, and a lack of culturally informed programming.
“Data quality on Native American students is inadequate, making it challenging for the U.S. government to effectively meet its obligations,” notes a recent report authored by researchers from the Urban Institute, Institute for Higher Education Policy, Brookings Institution, and American Institutes for Research. Those obligations are not merely administrative — they stem from the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities to Native American tribes, rooted in legal and political precedent that commits the United States to protect tribal sovereignty and ensure the educational well-being of Native communities.
The timing of the current data crisis is particularly troubling given the demographic reality of Native American communities. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the percentage of individuals classified as both Native American and another race or ethnicity grew by 160%. Yet students with these multiracial and multiethnic identities remain largely invisible in federal education data.
Current practices ensure that as many as one in 20 undergraduate students who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination remain hidden in official statistics — a figure five times higher than those counted as exclusively Native American. These aren’t rounding errors; they represent thousands of students whose needs, experiences, and outcomes go unmeasured and unaddressed.
In March 2024, the Office of Management and Budget released revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, the primary federal standards for collecting data on race and ethnicity. Informed by public listening sessions and consultation with tribal leaders, these revisions offer an opportunity to address the long-standing problems in Native American student data — if implemented correctly.
The revised standards outline three potential approaches for presenting data on multiracial populations. The first, “alone or in combination,” would include students who identify with more than one racial or ethnic group in all reporting categories. This approach acknowledges the reality that a student who is both Native American and Black, for example, belongs to both communities.
The second approach would report on as many combinations of race and ethnicity as possible that meet predefined population thresholds. Research shows that 2.5% of all undergraduate students nationwide identify as both Native American and white, 1.7% as both Native American and Latino or Hispanic, and 1.4% as Native American and Black. This detailed disaggregation would provide crucial insights into the experiences of students with specific multiracial backgrounds.
The third approach — combining all multiracial and multiethnic students into a single category — would essentially perpetuate current problems. Even OMB cautions against using this method in isolation due to equity and accuracy concerns.
Federal agencies, including the Department of Education, are required to finalize implementation plans and achieve full compliance by March 2029. This means the Trump administration will be responsible for determining how these standards are implemented — a critical decision with long-term implications for how Native American students are counted and supported.
History’s lessons
This is not the first time OMB has revised its race and ethnicity standards. In 1997, similar changes triggered significant shifts in how colleges reported demographic data. But the Department of Education’s guidance for those changes wasn’t released until October 2007, with final implementation delayed until the 2010-11 school year.
That timing proved consequential. The years following the Great Recession marked the high point for both overall undergraduate enrollment and Native American college enrollment. When enrollment began declining, researchers struggled to determine whether the 37% drop in Native student numbers represented an actual enrollment crisis or simply resulted from new reporting practices that undercounted Native students.
“This should be seen as a cautionary tale,” the researchers warn. The limitations of education data made it nearly impossible to understand what was actually happening to Native students during a critical period—a failure that continues to hamper efforts to address their needs today.
While federal action remains essential, some states are not waiting for Washington to act. Several have partnered with tribes to collect data about tribal affiliation for K-12 students, efforts that could serve as templates for federal action in higher education.
Washington state has emerged as a leader in this area. Following a 2008 study that addressed achievement gaps between Native and non-Native students, the state has worked to build reciprocal relationships between tribes, school districts, and state agencies. Programs like the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s partnership with La Conner High School to create an environmental science program centered on Indigenous traditions demonstrate what becomes possible when institutions work collaboratively with tribal
nations.
The results of more accurate counting at WSU have been striking. The Native Coug Scholars Fund achieved an 83% retention rate for scholarship recipients, compared with 71% for Native students who did not participate. Applications from Native American students also increased notably.
The path forward
Improving data quality for Native American students will require action on multiple fronts. Experts argue that the Department of Education must adopt either the “alone or in combination” approach or provide detailed disaggregation for multiracial and multiethnic Native American students. The department, experts add, should avoid combining all multiracial students into a single category, which would perpetuate decades of undercounting.
Researchers who study this issue also add that federal agencies must collaborate consistently with tribal leaders and governments to improve data transparency and access. Many Native American students are citizens of both their tribe and the United States, yet tribal governments have limited access to the detailed student data that federal and state governments routinely use. Bridging this gap, they say, would empower sovereign tribal governments to support their students.
The stakes could not be higher. Education is central to the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations and Native American people. Without accurate data, these obligations become impossible to fulfill effectively. Native students remain underrepresented in higher education datasets, perpetuating misunderstandings about the diversity and complexity of Native American identity while denying communities the information they need to support their members.
The federal government’s revised race and ethnicity standards won’t solve every problem related to Native American underrepresentation in higher education. But if implemented correctly, they have the potential to materially improve the quality of data about Native American students—and with it, the ability of institutions, researchers, policymakers, and tribal nations to support Native student success.
For the thousands of Native American students currently invisible in federal datasets, that change cannot come soon enough.
