Thousands of Montana students will be newly eligible for the state’s American Indian Tuition Waiver thanks to a policy change spurred by concerns that the waiver ran afoul of the Trump administration’s efforts to root out DEI, the Montana Free Press reports.
Prior to the change, Montana students with financial need had to be a member of a federally recognized tribe in Montana or prove that they had at least one-quarter of “Indian blood” in order to receive the waiver. But starting on July 1, the so-called “quantum blood” requirement will be dropped, and eligibility will be expanded to unenrolled tribal “descendants,” the new policy states.
The change is driving discussions about the circumstances under which public benefits can be extended to people who have tribal citizenship – which the Montana Free Press notes is a political classification, not a racial one – in an ever-shifting policy landscape.
The bigger picture:
When President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” in higher education – and his education secretary Linda McMahon followed it up with a “Dear Colleague” letter that promised to “take appropriate measures to assess compliance” – members of the Montana University System’s Board of Regents took note. Specifically, they began to look at whether Montana’s American Indian Tuition Waiver might not pass muster under the new policy.
Their concerns reflect the widespread apprehension that higher education officials have felt as of late about whether their efforts to make higher education more accessible for specific cultural groups might prompt an investigation by the Trump administration, even though the administration’s anti-DEI orders have been blocked in federal court.
The board of regents removed the “quantum blood” and tribal membership requirements in July. But the move was not without controversy. Some tribal members, such as Jonaye Doney, an enrolled member of the Gros Ventre tribe. vocally opposed the change that allowed non-members to receive the tuition waiver, according to the Montana Kaiman, the University of Montana’s student-run newspaper.
Questions remain about whether the change was actually necessary to avoid scrutiny from the Department of Education. Whereas one state higher education official told the Montana Free Press that compliance issues with the waiver were “imminent,” Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, a Democrat who heads up the State Tribal Relations Committee, told the newspaper the waiver “would not have been under threat at all.”
