Trump Seeks 90% Cut for Already Underfunded Tribal Colleges

The Trump administration is proposing a nearly 90% reduction in federal funding for tribal colleges and universities, a move that would likely force many of the nation's 37 Indigenous institutions of higher learning—which are already severely underfunded—to close, according to a ProPublica report published Wednesday.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior released its 2026 budget request, which seeks $22.1 million for tribal colleges and universities for the next fiscal year. That's down from $122.4 million allocated for the current fiscal year.

"The numbers that are being proposed would close the tribal colleges," American Indian Higher Education Consortium president and CEO Ahniwake Rose told ProPublica. "They would not be able to sustain."

Matt Krupnick, who authored the ProPublica report, previously revaled that Congress was already underfunding tribal institutions of higher learning by around a quarter-billion dollars per year, based on legislation passed in 1978 under which the government promised inflation-adjusted appropriations for Indigenous colleges and universities based on the number of students enrolled in federally recognized tribes.

As Krupnick noted:

The colleges have managed, despite the meager funds, to preserve Indigenous languages, conduct high-level research, and train local residents in nursing, meat processing, and other professions and trades. But with virtually no money available for infrastructure or construction, the schools have been forced to navigate broken water pipes, sewage leaks, crumbling roofs, and other problems that have compounded the financial shortcomings.

"I'm shivering in my boots," Manoj Patil, president of Little Priest Tribal College in Nebraska, told ProPublica. "This would basically be a knife in the chest. It's a dagger, and I don't know how we can survive these types of cuts."

The Interior Department's budget proposal comes amid the Trump administration's gutting of federal agencies, which is being spearheaded by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. It is also the latest in a series of administration actions targeting education for Native Americans, who suffered centuries of extermination, land theft, forced displacement, imprisonment in reservations and concentration camps, family separation, and other genocidal policies and practices of Euro-American colonizers.

Since taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump has suspended scholarship and research grants for Native Americans and rescinded a key White House initiative promoting Indigenous educational success.

However, as they always have, Indigenous people are fighting back. In March, Native students and tribal leaders sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs in a bid to stop the Trump administration's gutting of Indigenous education.

While some Indigenous leaders said they are counting on members of Congress to protect Native education, others expressed skepticism rooted in centuries of broken U.S. promises.

"It is a bit disheartening to feel like our voice is not being heard," Chris Caldwell, president of College of Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, told ProPublica. "They don't hear our message."