Trump Budget Cuts Devastate Tribal Colleges

0:00It's April 9th, Canada News Today starts now, AI-powered and ready. I'm Cory with the story. For the second straight year, the Trump administration's fiscal year, 2027 budget proposal, hits tribal college's hard, slashing there. Federal funding while pumping $1.5 trillion into defense spending. It wipes out all support for the Institute for American Indian Arts, the only federally funded school for contemporary Native American arts and cuts. Cash for tribal colleges and universities nationwide, plus two Bureau of Indian Education spots, Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico. This plan also carves billions from housing, business development, and infrastructure grants tied to treaty obligations for Native communities, leaving those programs gutted. Leaders warned that if Congress approves this, most tribal colleges would shut down within a year, forcing students out and erasing key pathways for.

1:02Native higher education. Last year, students at Haskell and Southwestern sued over similar cuts to funding and staff. While the prior budget shuffled some minority serving institution money toward historically black colleges and tribal schools, no one's counting on, they repeat this time around. Now tribal advocates and folks like Senator Ben Ray Luhon from New Mexico are pushing back hard, calling it an outright attack on Native progress. Congress has the final say, so keep an eye on how they step up for these essential schools serving Native futures.