Tribal college leaders are uneasy about US financial commitments despite a funding increase

NEW TOWN, N.D. (AP) — On a recent chilly fall morning, Ruth De La Cruz walked through the Four Sisters Garden, looking for Hidatsa squash. To college students in her food sovereignty program, the crop might be an assignment. But to her, it is the literal fruit of her ancestors' labor.

“There’s some of the squash, yay,” De La Cruz exclaimed as she finds the small, pumpkinlike gourds catching the morning sun.

The garden is named for the Hidatsa practice of growing squash, corn, sunflower and beans — the four sisters — together, De La Cruz said. The program is part of the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, operated by the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation.

It is one of more than three dozen tribal colleges and universities across the country that the Trump administration proposed cutting funding to earlier this year. Tribal citizens are among communities navigating the impacts of massive cuts in federal spending and the effects of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

A funding increase for tribal colleges and universities announced before the shutdown was welcome news, but college leaders remain uneasy about the government’s financial commitments. Those federal dollars are part of some of the country's oldest legal obligations, and tribal college and university (TCU) presidents and Native American education advocates worry they could be further eroded, threatening the passage of Indigenous knowledge to new generations.

“This is not just a haven for access to higher education, but also a place where you get that level of culturally, tribally specific education,” De La Cruz said.

When the U.S. took the land and resources of tribal nations to build the country, it promised through treaties, laws and other acts of Congress that it would uphold the health, education, and security of Indigenous peoples. Those fiduciary commitments are known today as trust responsibilities.

“We prepaid for all of this,” said Twyla Baker, the college's president.

The U.S. may have intentionally and violently disrupted the passage of Indigenous knowledge and lifeways, Baker said, but their ancestors forced the government to promise to protect them for future generations. Those legal and moral obligations must be honored, she said.

“They carried our languages under their tongues. They carried them close to their heart. They carried these knowledge systems with them and protected them to bring them forward to us. So I feel as if I have a responsibility to do the same,” Baker said.

Today, the education pillar of the trust responsibilities takes many forms, like the hundreds of elementary schools on reservations funded by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education and the funding that pays for Native history and language classes taught at TCUs.

That funding was set to be reduced by as much as 90% in President Donald Trump’s federal budget proposal. But in September the U.S. Department of Education announced TCUs would receive an increase of over 100%. While the decision was welcomed by many, those new federal dollars came at the cost of other institutions where many Native students attend, like Hispanic-serving institutions.

The education of Native students outside of TCUs are also part of those trust and treaty rights, said Ahniwake Rose, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which advocates for TCUs.

Rose said that the increase in Department of Education funding coincides with decreases in several areas of the federal government that provide vital grants to TCUs, like the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In 1994, Congress passed a bill designating tribal colleges as land grant institutions, which opened them up to new sources of federal funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But unlike other land grant universities like Cornell, Purdue and Clemson that are still sustained by the profits of unceded tribal lands, TCUs don’t share in those billions of dollars. Instead they rely on grants from the federal agencies that support land grant universities.

However, that too has become more difficult, Rose said. Tribal liaisons at some of those federal departments who ensure they are complying with their trust responsibilities have been laid off or furloughed, she said, and many of those positions remain unfilled.

“We’re still under a great deal of stress,” Rose said. “I don’t want people to think because we got this increase in funds that all is OK, because it’s still precarious.”

That kind of uncertainty makes it hard to budget, said Leander McDonald, president of the United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota. That, mixed with the current push to cut the federal workforce, leaves him and other TCU presidents second-guessing decisions to create education programs and hire staff.

“How long is the storm going to last?” McDonald said. “That’s the part that I think is unknown for us.”

Presidents like McDonald and Baker spend a lot of their time on the road, traveling to Washington, D.C., to make the case for both the value that TCUs add and the government’s responsibility to uphold them. An American Indian Higher Education Consortium report released in September found that in 2023 TCUs generated $3.8 billion in added income to the national economy in the forms of increased student and business revenue and social savings related to health, justice and income assistance.

On top of the opportunities higher education provides, for TCU students there is an added incentive. The U.S. government systematically tried to erase their cultures, and many students and faculty believe part of the government’s fiduciary responsibility to tribal nations today includes providing opportunities to sustain the traditions that it threatened.

Learning directly from elders who pass down that knowledge is a key part of the Native American Studies program at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. Students like Zaysha Grinnell, a citizen of the MHA Nation enrolled in the program, learn their languages and take classes on tribal sovereignty and traditional burial rites.

“You can’t get that anywhere else,” she said. “That experience, that knowledge, all of the knowledge that the ones teaching here carry.”

Many of the communities where those traditions were taught were broken up, the languages spoken in them were intentionally targeted, and the lands where they thrived were taken, said Mike Barthelemy, head of the college’s Native American Studies program.

“You can look around us in any direction for hundreds of miles, and those are ceded territories,” he said. “There’s not a single Indigenous nation that got really, truly compensated for what they gave. And so I think that trust responsibility, it lingers.”

Students take a test during a class at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in New Town, N.D. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Naomi Fox, a student in the Native American studies program at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, scraps a bison hide Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, in New Town, N.D. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Twyla Baker, president of the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, poses for a portrait at the school Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in New Town, N.D. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sydney Diaz-Corral embraces a horse during a class in the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College equine studies program at the Healing Horse Ranch, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, in Parshall, N.D. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Ruth De La Cruz, food sovereignty director at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, sorts through squash in an office at the school Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in New Town, N.D. (AP Photo/John Locher)

In a matter of hours Sunday, what had appeared to be a year no teams with losing records would be needed to fill out the bowl schedule suddenly changed when Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State announced they would decline bids despite being eligible.

There are 41 bowls this year, and 82 teams won the necessary six games to be eligible. But Iowa State and Kansas State teams going through coaching changes almost simultaneously said they were hanging up their cleats for the season. Notre Dame, the first team left out of the College Football Playoff, followed a few hours later.

Mississippi State and Rice, both 5-7, swooped in to accept bids because they were among the first in line based on their Academic Progress Rate. The Bulldogs will play Wake Forest in the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Owls will face Texas State in the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Birmingham Bowl was still searching Sunday evening for an opponent to play Georgia Southern, according to On3.

Iowa State, Kansas State and Notre Dame weren't going to play in any of those lower-level bowls, but their decisions altered the order of selections and presumably allowed three lesser teams to move up and bowls at the bottom to scramble.

Notre Dame's decision to shut down for the year came after it was announced as the first team left out of the playoff.

“As a team, we've decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,” the Fighting Irish said in a statement on social media. “We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we're hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.”

Notre Dame won its last 10 games following a three-point loss to Miami and a one-point loss to Texas A&M. The Fighting Irish, which lost to Ohio State in the national championship game last season, finished 10-2 and ranked No. 9 on Sunday in The Associated Press poll and No. 11 in the CFP rankings.

Miami got into the playoff as an at-large selection after moving from No. 12 to No. 10 in the final rankings. Notre Dame dropped a spot and will now stay home for the postseason for the first time since 2016.

The Big 12 Conference said it will fine Iowa State and Kansas State $500,000 each for opting out of bowl participation. Both schools are going through coaching transitions with Matt Campbell leaving Iowa State for Penn State and Chris Klieman announcing his retirement.

“While the conference acknowledges the difficult timing around coaching changes, the Big 12 is responsible for fulfilling its contractual obligations to its bowl partners,” the Big 12 said in a statement.

Iowa State announced its players voted to not play in a bowl because the team doesn't have healthy players to safety practice and play. ISU did not mention the coaching change from Campbell to Jimmy Rogers in its statement.

The Cyclones sustained numerous injuries this season while going 8-4, and members of the athletics administration and the previous coaching staff met Sunday with the players to gauge their interest in a bowl.

“The administrative staff and coaches respect and support the players decision,” athletic director Jamie Pollard said. “Our student-athletes have had an incredible season and we are grateful for their leadership as we worked through this process with them today.”

K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said he had conversations with players and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark before deciding to decline a bowl bid. The Wildcats were 6-6 after beating Colorado at home in their final home game.

“This decision was not taken lightly, but with our coaching staff transition and several uncertainties regarding player availability, I felt it was not in our best interest to try to field a team that was not representative of Kansas State University," Taylor said. "We applaud this group for fighting back from a 2-4 record to lead us to bowl eligibility yet again, and we are happy that our seniors were able to go out on top with a victory inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium.”

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Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht (3) looks to pass against the Oklahoma State during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Stillwater, Okla. (AP Photo/Gerald Leong)