Revolutionary is the word that comes to mind when describing the tribal college and university (TCU) founders’ vision. That same revolutionary vision and spirit will ensure the TCUs’ continued survival and growth. But the efforts of the TCU community, Native students, and allies of tribal higher edu­cation will all be needed to advocate for these remarkable institutions.

BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

Navajo Community College (now Diné College) was the first tribally controlled and accredited college. The institution was born after Ruth and Bob Roessel launched the community-controlled, culturally based Rough Rock Demonstration School in 1966. The Roessels had explored ways to advance educational self- determination and discussed the idea of creating a college in the Navajo Nation with their old friend Raymond Nakai, who was tribal chairman at the time. Despite some initial resistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and even some in the tribe, the Navajo Tribal Council passed a resolution in 1968 to establish America’s first tribal college in Tsaile, Arizona, giving birth to a movement.

One could say TCUs were a new form of resistance in Indian Country, in which education on Native peoples’ terms—based on Native values, traditions, histories, and languages—was envi­sioned as a way for not only our people to thrive economically but also for our cultures to prosper. But the TCUs’ roots run much deeper than the civil rights era when the Tribal College Movement began.

For decades, Indigenous people resisted federal policies designed to eradicate and assimilate them. These policies were always designed to sever our relationships with our relatives, cultures, lands, and resources. There was violent conflict during the Indian wars, but the Dawes Severalty Act ushered in a more insidious attempt on the part of the federal government to gain access to Native lands and to eradicate Native cultures. This law authorized the federal government to survey tribal land and divide it into individual allotments, with smaller parcels for farming and larger ones for grazing. It resulted in the loss of nearly 90 million acres of communally held land, forced farming and ranching on tribal people who may have been unfamiliar with those practices, and created economic hardship with the goal of severing traditional lifeways and dispossessing Native people of tribal land. In addition, the federal government implemented efforts to assimilate Native children by forcibly removing them from their families and ship­ping them to boarding schools far from home. Cultural disposses­sion, brainwashing, and physical abuse were hallmarks at these schools. In later decades, relocation and tribal termination were tools the federal government employed in its effort to eradicate Native cultures, lands, and indeed, our very existence.

Relentless advocacy led to the passage of the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978, which stands as one of the great historical milestones of the Tribal College Movement.

It was this long history from which a new idea emerged, one rooted in resistance. What if Native nations educated their people with their own values and traditions? What if Native nations created their own colleges and universities where tribal citizens could speak their languages, practice spiritual traditions, and have children learn in their own communities? What if courses at those institutions were taught by experts and elders—people who shared our values of respect, responsibility, reasoning, and being in relationship with each other? And what if we hired the graduates rather than outsiders to teach in our schools, work in our medical facilities, and run our own businesses?

The TCU movement’s success rested not merely on this vision, but also on the recognition that the fight to educate Native people in their cultural ways required advocacy for establishing institu­tions and funding them. First, our founders built a case for the importance of TCUs as tools for developing economic and cultural sustainability in their communities. Rather than bring in account­ants, lawyers, educators, and businesspeople from outside the tribe—non-Native people working at the BIA for example—the TCU founders envisioned growing their own talent. To ensure funding from the federal government, they needed to find like-minded allies in the legislature to support their vision—allied law­makers who understood this as part of the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibility.

To further advocate for that vision, the founders created organi­zational foundations for gaining and ensuring support. The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) was established in 1973 by the first six tribally controlled colleges—Navajo Community College, Oglala Sioux Community College, Sinte Gleska College, Turtle Mountain Community College, Standing Rock Community College, and DQ University. AIHEC would serve as their voice in Washington, DC. In addition, the new organization would provide the tribal colleges with support in cur­riculum development, human resource development, administra­tion, board management training, fundraising, and regional accreditation. Through its efforts, AIHEC identified the chronic shortage of financial resources as the greatest challenge facing TCUs. The organization therefore launched its legislative advoca­cy efforts on behalf of the TCUs with Lionel Bordeaux, president of Sinte Gleska College (now university), and David Gipp, AIHEC’s first executive director, tirelessly visiting legislators and policy­makers in an effort to win their support for federal funding. AIHEC continues that work to this day.

AIHEC’s advocacy led to the adoption of key legislation ensur­ing TCUs have the financial resources to offer educational oppor­tunities that align with the needs and cultural values identified by their chartering tribes. The landmark Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978 was the first step. The advocacy efforts continued, as TCU leaders worked alongside allies such as the National Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, resulting in the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994, which further opened the door to significant resources for these place-based institutions.

Further, the founders recognized students needed the financial resources to enter college and support themselves throughout their educational journey. In 1989, AIHEC established the American Indian College Fund as a 501(c)(3) fundraising organization with the mission to provide American Indian and Alaska Native students with scholarships and programmatic support, ensuring they have the tools to graduate and succeed in their chosen careers.

Providing students with access to a college education was important but establishing programs, internships, and mentoring that helped them succeed in college and after they graduated was just as critical. As the College Fund has grown, its work has evolved to encompass student advocacy. Today, the College Fund consistently receives the highest ratings from independent charity evaluators and is one of the nation’s top 100 charities in the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance.

SHARED VALUES AND BELIEFS FUEL COLLABORATIVE ADVOCACY

Research shows that effective advocacy is grounded in building strategic communication narratives on core, long-held beliefs and creating opportunities around shared aspirational values. Both the College Fund and AIHEC use these principles as the foundation for advocacy, but because of their respective structures, they advocate for TCU higher education in slightly different ways.

AIHEC interfaces directly with Congress and federal agencies to garner bipartisan support. The organization works with officials to cultivate the value of building strong Native and rural commu­nities through place-based cultural education. The College Fund supports Native students and tribal college education by forming coalitions with students, donors, other Native nonprofit organiza­tions, and allies to provide resources and remove financial barriers to education. Because the College Fund is a 501(c)(3) prohibited from lobbying activities, those tools include on-message talking points or scripted requests for support of Native students, TCUs, and the rural communities they serve. The goal is always to ensure the legislative and financial support that our hardworking students and TCUs need.

One recent College Fund call to action was a request for allies and students to contact elected officials to save the Pell Grant program, which is aimed at providing low- and middle-income students with grant funds for access to college. The Trump admin­istration had proposed cuts in Pell Grant awards by $1,700 per stu­dent, or nearly 23%, at a time when skyrocketing costs of higher education were the norm. The proposed funding cuts also called for eliminating Pell Grants for part-time students, which would have affected many TCU students. Data from AIHEC shows that 75% of TCU students are Pell eligible, raising concerns that these proposed cuts would have made access to higher education untenable.

The College Fund provided advocates, particularly students, with a script detailing what would happen if the Pell Grant program was not funded and asked them to share in their own words how the program helped them or family members and why it is important to them. Student voices from across the country helped ensure the maximum Pell Grant award for 2024-2025 remained for full-time students. However, Pell Grant eligibility was restricted for students with high non-income assets, even if they have low incomes, and part-time students will be impacted by a new minimum-credit requirement of at least nine credit hours to qualify, which eliminates Pell Grants for students enrolled less than half-time. On a positive note, Pell Grant awards are now available to students in trade education programs, but the future of the program is still uncertain, necessitating continued monitoring and advocacy in this arena.

Success in Pell Grant advocacy was due in part to college students and graduates lending their voices and telling their stories about the program’s impact. Indeed, a pillar of advocacy success for any organization is storytelling. Hence, each year the College Fund selects a cohort of student ambassadors and trains them to tell their own stories of courage, determination, and resilience. Through this lens, the College Fund demonstrates to policymakers and lawmakers how a higher education makes an impact on our students, their families, and their communities. Ambassadors’ stories are disseminated through the College Fund’s blogs, website, social media posts, YouTube video channel, electronic and mailed newsletters, and in public service announcements. Ambassadors share their personal journeys at events hosted by the College Fund so their experiences can inspire more support.

The College Fund’s student ambassadors serve as the organization’s foremost advocates for the importance and efficacy of TCUs.

The College Fund often asks both TCU presidents and students to serve as spokespeople during media interviews. Because readers and listeners relate to human stories, the College Fund uses stories first but provides research data to support those stories. For example, a nursing student might share how cutting funding for nurse training will impact their education. The College Fund would provide the journalist with supporting national data about health disparities, shortages of healthcare workers, and distances to healthcare facilities in rural areas surrounding TCUs. We also provide our own research data about the impact of TCUs on student success and rural and Native communities to substantiate calls to action for funding, establishing TCUs and the College Fund as experts in Native higher education.

The College Fund’s 2019 alumni survey found that 75% of TCU graduates returned to work in their home communities, the vast majority of which are rural.

In 2019, the College Fund and Gallup conducted a TCU alumni survey, which showed that 75% of tribal college students returned to work in their communities after graduation. This statistic illumi­nates the direct impact the government’s investment in TCUs has on Native and rural communities during a time when politicians cam­paigned heavily on how rural America has been left behind. In addi­tion to data showing how TCUs are lifechanging, data from AIHEC illustrates TCUs’ economic impacts on states and entire regions.

It isn’t always easy for students to share their stories, as many were taught to value humility. But these are critical times, and for Native voices to be heard, we ask our students and TCU faculty and staff to share their stories in service to a recommitment to the core values of the Tribal College Movement—and to refuse to be intimidated. By illustrating how tribal colleges and their graduates serve their communities, the College Fund, AIHEC, and the TCUs are sharing stories of success and building relationships with legisla­tors and policymakers based on our shared values. We are work­ing to ensure continued funding and other support while dis­pelling false narratives about Native people and demonstrating how TCUs are role models for the power of grassroots higher education.

LOOKING AHEAD

In addition to sharing the stories of our students, the College Fund is developing ways to create greater awareness of the tribal col­leges, their founders’ vision, their mission, and the work they and their students are doing in their communities. This effort helps ensure continued funding and support for these amazing institu­tions that are changing the face of their communities.

Currently, the College Fund is creating interactive webpages and timelines that will tell the remarkable story of the TCUs and their impact, which can be shared across the TCU ecosystem. The site will feature current and archival video clips, photos, scanned his­torical documents, links to articles, photos, interviews with the founders, infographics that show TCUs’ economic impact on tribal and surrounding communities, and “then and now” stories told through photos and narratives of the TCUs and their students.

TCUs are also utilizing storytelling through digital media to advocate for their institutions at the local and state levels. Storytelling can be leveraged for multiple purposes, including the AIHEC winter legislative summit in Washington, DC, where students along with TCU presidents share their stories directly with members of Congress and their staffs, forging invaluable personalized connections.

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The genius of the TCU founders was an understanding that revolution requires strategy, storytelling, and patience. Continued change isn’t sparked solely by a bolt of lightning out of the blue; instead, it comes in increments. Advocacy for change requires careful planning, assessing resources, laying the foundation for future growth, and communicating our vision so that like-minded individuals can help us create even greater access to education for our people.

Just as the TCU founders worked to create institutions to serve the next seven generations, the job of AIHEC, the College Fund, and the TCUs is to map and articulate our shared values and where we want to take Native communities in the future. We know where we want to go, so we must continuously create relationships that give our allies a path to help us get there. We do the work needed to prosper today while also sustaining the work of our institutions, rooted in the founders’ vision and focused on generations to come.

Cheryl Crazy Bull (Sicangu Lakota) is the president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund; Dina Horwedel, JD is the senior director of public education and communications at the College Fund.