The American Indian College Fund remembers generations of Native students who were forced to attend American Indian boarding schools by marking Orange Shirt Day.
The American Indian College Fund remembers generations of Native students who were forced to attend American Indian boarding schools by marking Orange Shirt Day.
American Indian and Alaska Native communities have achieved a great deal in the past century. Here at the American Indian College Fund, we look forward to what successes the future will bring as we encourage Native students, scholars, and communities alike to use the tools of citizenship to make their voices heard and their peoples prosper.
Did you know there are federal laws regarding what museums can keep in their collections when it comes to Native peoples? The American Indian College Fund believes elevating the visibility of contemporary Native artists and their voices is integral to telling our stories. It is just as important for Native people to be represented respectfully and accurately through the arts in museums and other institutions.
Native Americans are more impacted by the law than any other group in the United States. Native students in higher education, or seeking a higher education, in particular are impacted by federal and state laws impacting funding for education, such as Pell Grants, student loans, and federal funding for tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), 70% of which comes from federal sources.
Jade Araujo, an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) in Massachusetts and a descendant of the Tlingit and Koyukon Athabascan tribes in Alaska, is the third person to have been awarded the American Indian College Fund Law School Scholarship. Araujo is a senior at Stanford University who will graduate in June with a degree in political science and will enter Harvard Law School in the fall. She is the daughter of Todd Araujo (Aquinnah Wampanoag) and Jaeleen Kookesh (Tlingit and Koyukon Athabascan).
The American Indian College Fund provides the next generation of Native teachers with the support they need—financial and otherwise—to succeed in their important education careers, while also supporting tribal colleges and universities with teacher education programs to provide them with a quality education. Together we are working to ensure Native voices and perspectives are seen and heard in the classroom—and Native students have the support to succeed.
Women and girls are sacred in Native communities and the disproportionate rates of violence against Native women is deeply concerning. More than four out of five of our Native mothers, aunts, sisters, and daughters experienced violence (84.3%) in 2022, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics.
The American Indian College Fund was saddened to hear of the passing of Carole Falcon-Chandler, longtime president of Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC), a tribal college located on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, on April 23, 2024.