University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Paige Blackdeer is one of the few students from Black River Falls, Wisconsin, a town of 3,600 and administrative hub of the Ho-Chunk Nation, to attend college. Blackdeer, who tutored other Indigenous students in Black River Falls, knows firsthand the barriers many Indigenous students face in accessing higher education.
“When I was tutoring, there were so many people that were so smart,” Blackdeer told The Daily Cardinal. “[But] if they were told that they had the opportunity to go to college and if they actually did have the opportunity, I think [are] two separate things.”
Across the country, fewer students of all demographics are attending college — in the University of Wisconsin System only UW-Madison and UW-La Crosse did not experience drops in enrollment and end the 2023 fiscal year in a budget deficit. Declining enrollment, years of stagnant tuition and waning state funding has led to system-wide budget cuts and closures of two-year branch campuses.
With college tuition increasing and budgets being cut, college is becoming less accessible for many. Native Americans are already underrepresented in higher education — only 26% of 18- to 24-year-old Native students were enrolled in college in 2022, compared to 39% of the overall U.S. population, according to NCES.
Distance from home, urban environment challenges Native Americans students
The St. Croix Chippewa are located in Northern Wisconsin, on the other side of the state from Madison and La Crosse. As the tribe’s higher education coordinator, Janine McNulty’s job is to help students navigate college. But she doesn’t recommend her students apply to UW-Madison.
“I know that our kids need way more support in a smaller, more intimate school, and they would drown in Madison,” McNulty said.
Though Forest County Potawatomi Higher Education Director Mary Doane said UW-Madison’s multicultural population and exciting opportunities make it a “favorite” for her students, many of her students don’t want to be so far from home.
“If they live on the reservation and they want to be close to home, they know that they’ve got to be close to family and they don't want to miss out on the cultural aspect,” Doane said. “Generally, if they don't live on the reservation, they don't need to be close to home.”
McNulty noted her students don’t like schools located more than two hours away. Wisconsin reservations are mostly rural, and while most Native Americans live off reservation, they still disproportionately live in rural areas. Madison and La Crosse are both urban centers more than two hours from the St. Croix and the Forest County Potawatomi.
But it isn’t just Madison and La Crosse located far away. McNulty describes the St. Croix as an “education desert,” meaning an absence of a college within an hour of the tribe. With UW branch campuses and rural colleges closing, rural students are enrolling in college less across the board. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that only 55% of rural 2023 high school graduates enrolled in college, compared to 61% in 2016.
For the students Blackdeer tutored, the problem of college is two-fold. On one hand, many of the students didn’t believe they were capable of going to college, a belief often seen in first-generation students. On the other hand, many couldn’t afford to.
Despite not recommending it for other students, McNulty’s son goes to UW-Madison.
“He would be a third-generation student,” McNulty said. “I can give him the confidence that he needs to be able to go to a big school.”
When asked what barriers their students face for college, both Doane and McNutly said their first-generation college students struggle more than others. Native American students disproportionately have parents without college degrees. Only 23% of Native American children had a parent with at least a bachelor’s degree in 2021, according to NCES.
“Is it talked about in the house? Is it daily conversation? Is it a value? In some of the homes, it's not,” Doane said.
The non-traditional path beyond suburban high school
Perry Staples enrolled in an Ojibwe language class at UW-Eau Claire at Barron County on a scholarship from the St. Croix Chippewa, and McNulty had filed the paperwork to pay his tuition. For several months, Staples focused on his studies until just before the next semester when Staples received a letter in the mail alerting him he didn’t pay tuition.
“It put a damper on my end,” Staples said. “Like, I can’t afford this.”
McNulty and Staples went through several different channels, resubmitting the paperwork twice. Though eventually it was sorted out, McNulty was frustrated. This was just another instance of college bureaucracy putting stress on her students.
McNulty shared with the Cardinal a 23-page report that she said was submitted to the UW System Tribal consultation meeting last April. Nearly every barrier she describes — including mail carriers not delivering transcripts in time for enrollment and students being unable to complete FAFSA applications due to a poor internet connection — is accompanied by an anecdote from her students. Staples is one of those anecdotes.
McNulty argues in the report UW System doesn’t accommodate students who aren’t the typical suburban high school senior. Her students take non-traditional paths of education, and they don’t always go to four-year colleges immediately after high school, she said.
Staples is one such non-traditional student. Staples, 63, attended Mount Senario College in the 1980s and raised five children as a single parent. He works at the addiction recovery program Wings of Migizi after experiencing addiction and was recently pardoned by Gov. Tony Evers for four felonies.
Staples took his first Ojibwe language class in 2020 but couldn’t walk the stage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He went back to school because he wanted a proper graduation.
“I was looking forward to it my whole life,” Staples said. “I haven't walked on stage since I graduated in 1980, and this is really accomplishing not only for me, but for my sobriety.”
Many students aren’t looking to get a bachelor’s degree. Doane and McNulty’s students often work full-time, have families or are in their 40s and 50s with partially completed degrees. Four straight years of university doesn’t always fit.
Doane and McNulty know this, and they advise their students based on what’s best for them. Both agree that it can lead to higher degrees down the road.
“The success of earning a GED leads to an associate’s degree followed by a bachelor’s degree and now into a master’s degree,” McNulty wrote in her report.
Doane’s education department is beginning to advertise more adult education and technical schools. They have a summer youth employment program where students shadow different tribal departments and learn about different career paths. Even Staples encourages his members to get a degree while in recovery, adding classes are a tool to get better.
“Maybe for some of the students, college isn't the answer right now, but it is later, so we just try to build that confidence, build those positive relationships,” Doane said.
Once a tool for oppression, U.S. education system still poses difficulty, Native Americans say
The relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. education system is a tense one. The U.S. weaponized schooling against Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs kidnapping children and enrolling them in far-away boarding schools. Administrators prevented children from speaking their native language and forcibly converted children to Christianity. Many Native Americans often faced abuse. A common slogan used in these schools was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
The abuse was so significant that some boarding schools had graveyards. The U.S. Department of the Interior identified at least 973 known American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children who died under boarding school care, according to a report published in July of 2024.
“I think that Native American people as a whole are sometimes forgotten, and that was done specifically through policies of termination and assimilation,” Blackdeer said. “All of that was done on purpose.”
Though most of these schools were closed in the 1970s, tension remains. Blackdeer feels many higher education institutions don’t understand Native Americans and wants more education on Indigenous peoples. During her freshman year, she had a “racially charged” experience with some individuals from her residence hall. After student protests against a racist video in the spring of 2023, Blackdeer didn’t think UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin responded strongly enough to the incident.
Doane said at least four of her students have independently told her not to send Native students to the schools they were attending due to racist interactions.
“They’ll say ‘I feel very alone on campus, I don’t feel well represented, I don’t feel welcomed, I don’t feel accepted.’ They at least want to give that future student the heads-up,” Doane said.
Still, many in academia are looking to make college better for Native students, including Mike Martin, the interim chancellor of UW-River Falls.
UW-River Falls sits at the edge of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, which has a sizable Native population. It’s also just under two hours away from the St. Croix reservation. They’ve had a tough time with enrollment, but Martin thinks Native students could fill empty classrooms.
“The more difference you can bring to an institution, the more you can feed the curiosity that makes us who we are,” Martin told the Cardinal.
This isn’t Martin’s first time growing Native populations on campuses. He’s had a long career in the administrative side of academia and has worked extensively with Native Americans academics, Tribes and Tribal colleges. As president at New Mexico State University, he helped build a $5.3 million American Indian Student Center, which helped boost enrollment.
“The first thing we're trying to do is to bring some advice to our folks from people who know,” Martin said.
Over his career, Martin said Native American officials in higher education have given him insight on what Native students need to feel comfortable on campus. One friend of his is Arthur Butch Blazer, a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, who served under former President Barack Obama as a Deputy Under Secretary for the USDA. Martin said Blazer has been a “guiding light” on how to create relationships with Tribal colleges and Tribes.
“I learned from Butch that ask, don't tell. Listen, don't sell,” Martin said. “His attitude is [that] you should show up and be genuinely curious about what things other people are curious about.”
Ideas are already swirling. UW-River Falls has one of only three UW System schools with an agricultural and life sciences college. Martin is interested in creating a food science initiative in tandem with Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, which aims at bringing traditional foods back to Indigenous communities. Janie Hipp, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and founder of the USDA’s Office of Tribal Relations, founded the initiative.
There’s also the potential for tuition decreases. Though education budgets have been tight, Martin said budget cuts haven’t been in proportion to enrollment decreases. Martin thinks that decreasing tuition for targeted populations could bring in more students without the University incurring any costs.
Last year, UW-Madison announced the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program, a scholarship for Wisconsin Indigenous students to have all educational costs not covered by FAFSA paid for. Blackdeer is one of the first students to receive the scholarship. Most tribes offer scholarships, which Doane said encourages many to apply.
Martin is also planning to reach out to Tribal colleges, which are typically two-year institutions. A 2+2 program is where students earn their associates at a two-year institution before transferring to a four-year institution. An established connection between UW-River Falls and nearby Tribal colleges could benefit both institutions, Martin said. But he knows there’s hesitancy.
“Folks like me have shown up, alleging to help them, and haven't done a very good job of it. There's not always as much trust as you would like to have created,” Martin said.
Having Native Americans as role models on campus is great for encouraging enrollment, Doane said. Martin proposed sharing Indigenous faculty with the Tribal colleges or establishing an Indigenous housing community. At New Mexico State, he let tribes use practice football fields for powwows, which he considered a relatively cheap expense for the school that made a positive impact.
“For the first time, many of the parents as well had never been on a campus, and they discovered it wasn't frightening, and there were nice people there, and all those little things you do begin to send a message that matters,” Martin said.
Visibility is key for Blackdeer. She praised UW-Madison for its vibrant Indigenous community. There are a variety of student groups, such as Wunk Sheek or the Indigenous Law Student Association. The friends she made from these groups have given her great support.
McNulty strongly believes the application process scares off many students. In her 23-page report, she suggests gateway classes, like the one Staples took, to help build confidence for potential students.
There’s lots of options, but the first step into getting Native students on campus is to build relationships with them, McNulty, Staples and Blackdeer all agreed on.
UW System hosts tribal consultations on a regular basis to hear about the Tribe’s concerns, UW System spokesperson Mark Pitsch told the Cardinal. Each university and each Tribe are different, and many approaches are being considered, Pitsch said.
“While we are always looking for ways to support the success of Native American students, we recognize there is more to be done,” Pitsch said. “We are working with the universities and the Tribes to address issues and build capacity toward successful student outcomes, including by smoothing pathways to our universities and supporting students after they enroll.”
Despite college enrollment declines, both Doane and McNulty said they are serving more students than they had at the start of their careers. There is still an interest in higher education and many passionate people working to make college more accessible, they said. For Indigenous students, ongoing work from all levels of academia provides hope for change.
“When [Native Americans] go to college, they learn, just like everyone else, about the global world. Colleges are filled with building of confidence,” McNulty said. “They learn to be advocates. They learn their history. They have opportunities to learn culture and language that is outside the tribal community, and they get prepared to come back to their tribe and pull their tribe up a little higher.”
