| Spring 2025 |
Circle of Hope
Education Is the Promise We Must Keep
I want to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude for your continued support of our students and the communities we call home. Your care, generosity, and commitment to stand with Native students in both the good, and especially the hard, times has always sustained our work – and your friendship means more than words can express.
Over the past several months, we’ve been talking about the impact of federal policy changes on Native students. You may have deep knowledge of treaty obligations, public policy, and the relationship between Tribal Nations and the U.S. government. Or you may not have the same exposure to this history but support the College Fund because of deeply held values and a shared belief that education is the answer.
The relationship between Native Nations and the U.S. government is incredibly complex. Shaped by history, trust obligations, and treaty rights, we know this relationship shifts with every administration – and sometimes the complexities and dynamics of major policy changes have disproportionate and often devastating impact on Native people, including and especially our students.
With your support, we will find new ways to lift our students to ensure they do not lose hope, and to fill those gaps funding cuts have created. We are expanding our direct support to students in the year ahead, broadening the types of assistance we can provide, as support programs for Native students at schools are being discontinued.
For those students who planned to move into graduate studies or careers but now find themselves charting a new course, we will be there – offering mentorship, career coaching, and guidance to help them navigate unexpected changes. As costs rise and more students seek financial assistance, collectively we will work tirelessly to expand opportunities by awarding more scholarships – so as many students as possible can continue their education without interruption.
We are deeply grateful for the broad coalition of people who stand with us in this work – we know our shared commitment to education, opportunity, and the well-being of Native students transcends any single perspective.
We are here to stand by our students and communities, and that means filling the immediate gaps and creating new pathways to access for all Native students in their quest to achieve higher education.
As we navigate this uncertain and often difficult landscape, we are reminded of our commitments and the reason for our very existence. Native students and their contributions are too important to leave behind. We will continue to fight for every student who seeks an education to have that opportunity.
Thank you for being on this journey with us. It is not always easy, but together we are stronger.
Yours in strength and unity,
Standing in the Gap for Native Students
Across the country, colleges are responding to recent policy decisions at both the state and federal level aimed at eliminating race-based policies and programs. While American Indians are citizens of sovereign nations and not a race, schools are seeking to avoid scrutiny and penalty by making broad cuts that are impacting Indigenous students.
While some institutions are pulling back in the face of uncertainty, we are stepping forward – and we are able to do that because of your persistent care and consideration for Native students.
Policy Impacts on Native Students
Cuts to funding students relied on:
- School-administered scholarships for Native students
- Government grants or programs that included internships
- Paid fellowship programs for graduate students
Celebrations of culture cancelled:
- Native convocation ceremonies
- Native American Heritage Month
- Events celebrating Native culture
Resources for students shut down:
- Native student organizations
- Culturally relevant support services
- STEM and other career pathways for underrepresented students
How We are Helping
- Increasing direct financial support to students, awarding more total scholarships in 2025 than ever before
- Providing temporary emergency funding for sudden program gaps at Tribal Colleges
- Offering fellowship opportunities for Native students and faculty
- Hosting virtual and in person opportunities for scholars to be heard and celebrate their cultures
- Supporting Tribal Colleges where curriculum and instruction is centered in culture
- Student success coaching opportunities
- Career path counseling
- Summer first-year college preparation programs
- Developing new partnerships with corporate employers
We have always met students where they are on their educational journey, and that has never been more true than
now. Together, we will ensure they stay on the path to success. Thank You!
Learn
Staying informed is always one of the best ways to support Native students! In our rapidly changing world, our students need to know they can count on people like you who understand the issues in their lives.
Act
Native students are small in number, but with your help they can be heard. Lend our scholars your voice: let all of your elected officials know you support Native higher education and are watching how they vote!
Give
Your support could be the difference for a student at risk of pausing their education. As other financial support disappears, applications rise. Together, we will fund as many as possible!
When Native students need a path forward, you help create one. Thank you for making a difference!
Rooted in the Earth, Reaching for Change:
Annalise
(Cherokee Nation)
PhD, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
When Annalise was a young girl growing up in rural Missouri, she wasn’t dreaming of earning a PhD. Like so many Native children, she didn’t have role models in academia – or even a family member who had gone to college. In fact, she was the first in her family to graduate high school.
But she did have one thing guiding her every step: a deep, ancestral understanding of her relationship with the land.
“I was raised with the belief that the land, the water, even the air are our relatives,” she says. “We are stewards of this earth. Not above it. Not separate from it.”
That belief stayed with her when she enrolled at Haskell Indian Nations University, where she found a profound sense of belonging. There, she discovered that Indigenous ways of knowing were not only valid, but essential – even in the most rigorous scientific settings.
She marveled at how Native names reflect the attributes of the land or record geological events, like Tomanowos, the name meaning “visitor from heaven,” given to a meteorite. She appreciated anew how her traditions hint at complex
ecological systems – such as the ceremonial use of cedar referencing photosynthesis, plant cycles, and seasonality.
By the time she reached the University of Kansas to pursue her PhD, she knew with certainty: Native people don’t just deserve a seat in the lab – science itself has much to gain from Indigenous knowledge.
Her research focuses on how changes in climate and land use affect soil and water systems – work with direct impacts on water quality, agriculture, and community health. “What happens beneath our feet matters,” she says. “It affects the water we drink, the land we live on, and the future we leave behind.”
Annalise has used her time in graduate school to speak up for Indigenous students, mentor others, and help create space for Native voices in science. But her path hasn’t been easy.
That support includes the American Indian College Fund, which has awarded her scholarships every semester since she enrolled as an undergraduate.
“The College Fund was the first to believe in me,” Annalise says. “That first scholarship told me I belonged. It gave me the confidence to keep going. I truly don’t think I would have gone on to pursue my PhD without that support.”
Annalise’s journey has been shaped by perseverance, purpose, and a passion for the natural world – and she will need those qualities more than ever as she completes her PhD and prepares to enter a shifting workforce.
While she had hoped to return to a TCU like Haskell to teach, recent cuts to federal programs have made opportunities like that more uncertain, and the job Annalise lined up has been eliminated. Across the country, reductions in research funding are also affecting the postdoctoral paths many graduates like her would typically pursue.
Still, Annalise remains undeterred, knowing she does not walk this path alone. “No matter how the road shifts, I’m going to keep walking it,” she says. “I really do feel like you all have my back. Every semester, I’ve had the confidence of knowing I’m supported. It’s changed my life. I don’t think I’d be here today without you.”
Even when institutions fall short or doors close, she’s committed to staying in academia – and making space for others.
“It’s really made me understand how important it is that I stay in these spaces and continue to make room for people to share their culture and contextualize their science in a way that’simportant for our communities.”
