American Indian College Fund Hosts Webinar on Native Higher Education Access and Success Strategies with Brookings Institute and Institute for Higher Education Policy on January 15

Panelists to discuss findings from 2024 Native Higher Education Policy Convening, including strengthening policies, respecting tribal sovereignty, and leveraging data to address the decline in Native American higher education enrollment.

Denver, Colo., January 2, 2025—The American Indian College Fund (College Fund), the Brookings Institute (Brookings), and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) are releasing a report focused on ways to ensure Indigenous students’ continued access to higher education and success. The report, titled Report on Native Higher Education Success Strategies: Strengthening policies, respecting tribal sovereignty, and leveraging data to address the decline in Native American higher education enrollment, will be previewed on a free webinar January 15 by a panel of higher education organization leaders. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, American Indian and Alaska Native (Native) enrollment in post-secondary education declined by 40% between 2010 and 2021. While this crisis has been simmering for nearly a decade, it gained broader attention in 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court held in its decisions Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard)1 and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (UNC), Nos. 20-1199 and 21-7072 that race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions programs violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the UNC/Harvard decision). Colleges and universities could no longer consider race in admissions practices, and higher education institutions across the country began eliminating student identity data from admissions applications. The Report on Native Higher Education Success Strategies outlines recommendations for higher education institutions, educators, policymakers, and tribal communities to ensure Native students, who are not classified as a racial group, retain access to higher education.  

Report recommendations include promoting inclusive collaboration on data and research; promoting access and increased funding for substantive research and policy development; and creating awareness and access to successful work that is already being done in the higher education field.  

To register to attend the free Zoom webinar with a panel of experts from the College Fund, Brookings, IHEP, and United Tribes Technical College on Wednesday, January 15 from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, please visit https://bit.ly/4fidD7z.

The panel will be moderated by Cheryl Crazy Bull (Sicangu Lakota), President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. Panelists include Robert Maxim (Mashpee Wampanoag), a fellow at Brookings Metro; Leander R. McDonald, Ph.D. (Spirit Lake Dakota Nation and proud descendant of the Sahnish, Hidatsa, and Hunkpapa Nations), President of United Tribes Technical College; and Mamie Voight, President and CEO of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.  

 

Cheryl Crazy Bull, Wacinyanpi Win (They Depend on Her), is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation and President and CEO of the College Fund, a role she has held since 2012. A lifelong educator and community activist, Crazy Bull is an advocate for self-determination focused on Native voice, philosophy, and traditions as the heart of the people’s work in building prosperity for current and future generations. 

An expert in education, Crazy Bull has served as a faculty member, department chair, Dean of Academic Affairs, and Vice President of Administration at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation, her home reservation, in South Dakota; as Chief Educational Officer at St. Francis Indian School; and as President of Northwest Indian College, a tribal college in Washington state, for ten years.  

Crazy Bull is also a member of non-profit organization boards, including the Native Ways Federation, a national association of Native non-profits; the State Higher Education Executive Officers Organization Equity Advisory Committee; and Brookings. 

Crazy Bull is a frequent presenter and writer about Indigenous education, education equity, and place-based education. She holds an honorary cultural degree from Sinte Gleska University and an honorary doctorate from Seattle University. 

She has received numerous awards for her work. She was named by Indian Country Today magazine as one of the 50 most influential people in Indian Country (2015); was one of two American Indian women leaders honored by National Indian Women’s “Supporting Each Other” group (2017); received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Native American Finance Officers Association (2019); received a CBS tribute in its CBS CARES public service announcements series for overcoming challenges, stereotypes, and biases in the workplace, was Working Mother Media’s Legacy Awardee (2020), received the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian Elizabeth Seabury Mitchell Awardee for exemplary service and philanthropic giving in promoting American Indian culture (2021); was named Global MindED’s Inclusive Leader Awardee (2021); and was a Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Social Equality Awardee (2023). 

Crazy Bull participates in research and studies about Indian Country, and most recently shared her expertise for The Health of Women and Children Report 2022 for American’s Health Rankings by United Health Foundation and the Intergenerational Poverty and Mobility Among Native Americans in the U.S. Report for the National Academies committee on Policies and Programs to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty in 2023.  

 

Robert Maxim is a fellow at Brookings Metro. He is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and leads Brookings Metro’s research around Native American communities. His research has focused on the exclusion of Native Americans in U.S. federal government datasets, as well as how federal data misrepresents Native American identity. He has also conducted research on Native American education policy, with a focus on how regional, state, and federal actors can bolster investment into Native American-serving educational institutions. He has also written on Native Americans’ access to the remote work economy and the role of Native American community development financial institutions in tribal economies. Within Brookings, he has led efforts to resurface the Institution’s historic engagement in tribal communities, including the landmark 1928 Meriam Report, and to engage with Native-led organizations on enabling future research centering Native American people. 

Maxim also conducts research and designs policy proposals exploring how technological change and other economic trends affect people and places. His recent work has focused on broadening access to highly digital employment, developing more inclusive state innovation economies, measuring federal investments into place-based industrial policy, and supporting the missions of regional public universities. Maxim has previously written about the effects of automation and artificial intelligence on U.S. workers, ways to encourage economic growth and inclusion in U.S. heartland states, the geography of the COVID-19 recession, the gig economy and contingent work, and the effects of U.S. tariffs and trade policy. 

 

Leander R. McDonald, Ph.D., Mahto Zso Zso (Whistling Bear), is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation and a proud descendant of the Sahnish, Hidatsa, and Hunkpapa Nations. Dr. McDonald has served as the President of United Tribes Technical College for ten years. He previously served as Chairman for the Spirit Lake Nation, Vice President of Academic Affairs for Cankdeska Cikana Community College, and Assistant Professor at the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences.   

Dr. McDonald’s higher education training began at his tribe’s tribal college and university, Cankdeska Cikana Community College, with an associate of arts degree in liberal arts in 1993. He earned another associate degree in Business Administration from the University of North Dakota (UND) Lake Region in 1997, followed by bachelors and master’s degrees in Sociology from UND in 1998 and 2000. His PhD in Educational Foundations and Research, also from UND, was conferred in 2003. 

Much of Dr. McDonald’s published research is focused on Native elders’ health risks and disparities, American Indian veterans’ access to healthcare, and American Indians behavior risk factors. During his tenure as the Spirit Lake Chairman, he provided three national testimonies in support of child protection legislation, disparities, and the resources necessary to bring parity to tribal systems.  McDonald is a U.S. Army veteran and resides in Bismarck, North Dakota with his wife Francine. 

 

Mamie Voight is the President and CEO of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. She is driven by the belief that the circumstances of one’s birth should not dictate one’s opportunities in life. In shaping IHEP’s strategic direction, Voight recognizes the power of postsecondary policy and practice to build a more just and equitable society. She is an expert in postsecondary data quality and transparency, college affordability, college completion, and postsecondary value. She helped launch the Postsecondary Data Collaborative, through which IHEP convenes dozens of members to advocate for the use of high-quality postsecondary data to advance student success and educational equity. She also served as Managing Partner of the Postsecondary Value Commission, calling on policymakers at every level to ensure that every student can access the economic and noneconomic benefits that higher education can provide. 

Voight is a leading voice on national higher education policy and has been featured in outlets including CNN, NBC News Now, The Hill, NPR, Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and MarketWatch. She has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate about the importance of high-quality postsecondary data to inform decision making and promote student success. Before joining IHEP in 2013, Voight served in multiple roles at The Education Trust. She earned her B.S. in civil engineering from Villanova University, her M.S. in civil engineering from the University of Delaware, and her M.P.P. from Georgetown University. 

 

About the American Indian College Fund — The American Indian College Fund has been the nation’s largest charity supporting Native higher education for 35 years. The College Fund believes “Education is the answer” and provided $20.5 million in scholarships and other direct student support for access to a higher education steeped in Native culture and values to American Indian students in 2023-24. Since its founding in 1989 the College Fund has provided more than $349 million in scholarships, programs, community, and tribal college support. The College Fund also supports a variety of programs at the nation’s 34 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers. The College Fund consistently receives top ratings from independent charity evaluators. It earned a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, a Gold Seal of Transparency from Guidestar, and the “Best in America Seal of Excellence” from the Independent Charities of America. The College Fund was also named as one of the nation’s top 100 charities to the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org. 

Journalists—The American Indian College Fund does not use the acronym AICF. On second reference, please use the College Fund.