Technological limitations, financial stresses and balancing external responsibilities are among some of the challenges faced by rural students.
Those access issues have further been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), in particular, being disproportionately impacted. The infection rate is 3.5 times higher within Native American communities compared to White populations, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Though colleges and universities received funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, President of North Dakota’s Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, Dr. Twyla Baker, said that “if those dollars got mainstream [institutions] to the 50-yard line, those same dollars just got tribal colleges to the starting line.”
“We have had problems with infrastructure, with access, a lot of different things that we have been advocating for prior to the pandemic just to get us to equity,” she added. “When you have the crisis like the pandemic happen, it really shows you where the cracks are.”
Baker joined other higher education leaders to address the pandemic’s impact on rural community colleges during the three-day virtual 2021 National Legislative Summit on Wednesday hosted by the Association of Community College Trustees and the American Association of Community Colleges.
Some support systems implemented by institutions to meet students’ basic needs during COVID-19 include offering Wi-Fi hotspots, providing success coaches, mentoring first-generation and first-time students, hosting engagement opportunities and establishing new scholarship funding.
The current student debt crisis was also at the forefront of the conversation.
