Tribal colleges would 'close within a year' if Trump budget passes, leaders say

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for next year would slash billions of dollars in funding to tribal nations, much of which fulfills trust and treaty obligations. 

Included in those deep cuts would be funding for tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) and entirely eliminating money for other programs. Trump’s 2027 budget proposal calls for a $1.5 trillion increase in defense spending, while cutting funding for nearly everything else. 

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It’s the second year in a row Trump has sought to drastically cut funding for tribal nations. 

TCUs would ‘close within a year’

Big picture view:

Trump’s budget proposal slashes billions of federal dollars in housing, business, and infrastructure grants that benefit Native Americans. It also eliminates all funding for the Institute for American Indian Arts, the nation’s only federally funded college for contemporary Native American arts.

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In addition to cutting TCU funding, the budget proposal released last week would also cut funding for two schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education: Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico. 

What they're saying:

"If this budget was to pass, our TCUs would be forced to close within a year," Ahniwake Rose, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, told The Associated Press. 

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"These cuts are unacceptable, and I will fight relentlessly to protect IAIA and secure the federal funding they need," Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico and a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said in a statement. "President Trump’s budget proposal to eliminate IAIA’s federal funding is a direct attack on Native communities and yet another example of how the administration is turning its back on Native communities."

The backstory:

Tribal nations operate roughly three dozen TCUs in the U.S., providing education at a steep discount for tribal citizens, often in the most rural parts of the country. The majority of their funding comes from the federal government as part of the treaty rights owed to tribes. 

Last year, Trump also cut funding for TCUs, including several grants at agencies like USDA that support education for tribal citizens. He also cut funding for minority-serving institutions and reallocated some of it to historically Black colleges and Universities and TCUs.

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Tribal college leaders said they aren’t expecting those funds back this year. 

Will Trump’s budget pass? 

Dig deeper:

The president’s budget doesn’t carry the force of law – passing a budget is up to Congress. Congress is free to reject it and often does. Last year, Trump sought a roughly one-fifth decrease in non-defense spending, but Congress kept spending relatively flat.

According to Tribal Business News, Congress also rejected Trump’s request last year to cut nearly $1 billion from tribal programs.