Indian college faces turmoil over tuition
Indian college faces turmoil over tuition

By the Associated Press Comments 0
Published: October 24, 2009

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Linda Sue Warner had big ambitions when she arrived in 2007 as president of Haskell Indian Nation University, the only four-year college operated by the federal government for American Indians. Now she wonders whether those ambitions could cost her the job.

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She envisioned major campus improvements and an expansion of the college’s programs. But she also proposed to increase the fees paid by Haskell’s roughly 1,050 students — $215 per semester, including room and board — to $1,000.

And that was where she ran headlong into the belief among many Haskell students and alumni that the government owes them a free or nearly free education, both by treaty and for generations of cultural oppression.

Students protested, and members of the Board of Regents called for Warner’s ouster.

"I feel strongly that these kids shouldn’t have to pay to go to school here,” said Haskell alumnus and Kickapoo tribal Chairman Russell Bradley.

In September, amid the furor, Warner was sent to New Mexico on a temporary assignment for the government.

Warner and other Haskell employees have been ordered not to speak with reporters. Interior Department spokeswoman Nedra Darling said the ban was to keep track of media. "It wasn’t muzzling by any means,” Darling said.

Darling said there are no plans to replace Warner, who is scheduled to return to Kansas in January.

As for the proposed fee increase, which would need government approval, it is all but dead.

Haskell began in 1884 as an Indian boarding school, created to purge all traces of native culture from its students, who were often forcibly removed from their families at ages 5 to 7. They wore military uniforms and followed a spartan regimen. Some died of exposure or malnutrition.

The school became a junior college in 1970 and a four-year school in 1994, and now attracts students from more than 130 tribes. Haskell’s low cost reflects the U.S. government’s treaty obligation to tribal members, said Bob Musgrove, a former Haskell business school dean.

The college receives about $14 million a year from the government. Congress approved a revised formula several years ago that would increase funding but did not appropriate the extra dollars.

Travis Brown, a 32-year-old senior from Dallas, said students are not opposed outright to paying more.

"It’s not that students don’t want to pay tuition. We just want to see more results,” he said.

I feel strongly that these kids shouldn’t have to pay to go to school here.”

Russell Bradley
Haskell alumnus and Kickapoo tribal chairman