Intertribal Life Newspaper -

DENVER, Colo.-In early July, Colorado governor Jared Polis signed two bills that affect Native American young people and culture in Colorado.

The first bill, the Native American tuition classification bill, ensures that Native American students from 46 tribes whose ancestors were relocated from their Colorado homelands by the U.S. government during the 1800s will receive in-state tuition to Colorado public colleges and universities next year.

Colorado joins a growing list of states granting college tuition waivers or in-state tuition to its original Native American residents, including out-of-state students whose tribes have historical ties to the area.

"I think access to education is part of the obligations associated with treaties," Cheryl Crazy Bull (Sicangu Lakota), president of the American Indian College Fund told Jenna Kunze of Native News Online. "I go back to the fact that this was all the land of Indigenous peoples that we lived and thrived on."

Currently, the U.S. Census Bureau's latest statistics from 2016 report that only 19 percent of Indigenous young people were enrolled in college or university compared to 41 percent of all students the same age. The Native American statistics were the lowest percentage of all race and ethnic groups studied.

In Colorado, three public universities already offer some sort of tuition break to Native students: Colorado State University and University of Colorado Boulder offer American Indian students in-state tuition. Fort Lewis College, a university based in Durango, Colo., has offered tuition waivers to any federally enrolled Alaska Native or Native American tribal member since 1910. That year, the school, whose 6,000-acre property was previously operated as a military base and an Indian boarding school in the 1800s, changed hands from the federal government to the state of Colorado on the condition it waive tuition for Native students.

Dr. Majel Boxer, Chair & Associate Professor of Native American & Indigenous Studies at Fort Lewis College (Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota) told Kunze of Native News Online that she sees Colorado's legislation as a great first step towards reparations, one that should be accompanied by education. Non-Native students need to be educated about why Native students should receive these benefits, she says.

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Governor Polis signed a bill for Native American tuition at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Forty-one percent of Fort Lewis's student body is Native American or Alaska Native.

Boxer added that, while tuition costs help, another consideration for institutions should be how to support Native students once they're enrolled. "Does an institution have a Native American center?" she said. "Does it even have a multicultural center?"

Other states offering in-state tuition and tuition waivers include: Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, Minnesota, North Dakota, and various individual colleges in other states.

The second bill Polis signed was one designed to make sure that public schools do not use Native-themed mascots without Native approval. Any school using an American Indian mascot without formal tribal approval will have to pay $25,000 in fines per month, beginning in June 2022.

"I am committed to ensuring that Colorado is a national leader in deeply valuing and respecting the American Indian communities in all manners, and continuing to support the needs of our schools," Polis said in a statement.