Journal editorial: Tribal colleges deserve state funding to plug loophole

| Thursday, February 08, 2007

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On Friday morning, Tom Shortbull, president of Oglala Lakota College, and representatives of the three other tribal colleges in South Dakota plan to testify before the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. They want to plug a loophole in tribal college funding.

At present, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs funds tribal colleges $4,563 for each full-time American Indian student, or students who are enrolled in an Indian tribe.

That’s fine. The loophole is that each of the four colleges also has a number of “non-beneficiary students,” who are either non-enrolled Indian students or non-Indian students. The BIA provides no funding for those students.

Shortbull and other college officials are asking South Dakota lawmakers to approve SB112, which would appropriate $500,000 from the general fund to the Board of Regents, which would parcel it out to tribal colleges per their numbers of full-time-equivalent non-beneficiary students.

Oglala Lakota College, which has about 140 such students, would receive $187,557, according to Shortbull. OLC has nine campuses on the Pine Ridge Reservation, one in Rapid City and one on the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Sinte Gleska University, on the Rosebud Reservation, would receive $275,661 for its 206 FTE non-beneficiary students; Sitting Bull College would receive $11,695 for nine students, and Sisseton Wahpeton Community College would get $25,087 for 19 students.

Shortbull points out that South Dakota state colleges receive about $3,900 in state funding for each FTE student, and that it's only fair that tribal colleges are funded, too.

He said many students attend tribal colleges because the campuses are close to where they live in rural areas of South Dakota.

“We have a major impact in rural communities,” Shortbull said. “Those students are isolated, and often don't have the financial means to attend college elsewhere.”

One example he mentioned was Connie Rous, who received her elementary education degree from OLC and teaches at Batesland Elementary School on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Last fall she received a Milken Family Foundation National Education Award, which are called the “Oscars of Teaching.”

A $500,000 appropriation from the state could help tribal colleges graduate more students of the caliber of Connie Rous.

The 2007 Legislature should pass SB112.