Lawmakers seek to improve educational prospects for indigenous students

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(The Center Square) - Native Americans have the lowest college enrollment rate of any ethnic group within the United States.

Legislation introduced in the Pennsylvania House hopes to right that trajectory by waiving tuition to schools within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, or PASSHE.

Rep. Christopher Rabb, D-Philadelphia, and Rep. Ismael Smith Wade-El, D-Lancaster, are re-introducing their bill which would extend the waiver to enrolled members of tribes that either were located in Pennsylvania or saw their children taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was a model for indigenous boarding schools across the U.S. Thousands of children from 140 tribes were sent there against their and their families’ wills. There, they were worked, abused and forced to adopt European-American culture at the expense of their own. Hundreds died from illness and injury in the process.

“The unequal educational opportunities and outcomes for Native American students have long been overlooked and, when considering the strong connection several Native American nations have to the land of Pennsylvania, it becomes clear that we must act to change this,” wrote the representatives in a memo calling for co-sponsors.

A January 2025 report from the American Indian College Fund found that just 25% of American Indians and Alaska Natives aged 18-24 were enrolled in college or graduate school. That’s about 14% lower than the wider U.S. population.

Currently, a number of individual schools, like the University of Arizona, offer opportunities like scholarships to Native American students. A handful of states like Michigan have programs in place that extend tuition waivers across their public secondary education systems.

Rabb also introduced a bill that would commission the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to “study the intergenerational impact of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on Indigenous youth brought to Pennsylvania, and to examine the complicity of state government, religious institutions, academia, philanthropic entities, and the private sector in a broader campaign of cultural genocide.”

The proposed study would focus on indigenous voices in examining what happened at the school and within U.S. policy and how it continues to negatively impact Native Americans today. The bill’s purpose, Rabb wrote, includes ascertaining “how we can begin the work of truth-telling, atonement, and healing.”

“Pennsylvania cannot remain silent in the face of this history,” wrote Rabb in a memo seeking co-sponsorship on the bill. “The state was not merely a bystander; it was host to a national project of forced assimilation and Indigenous dispossession. The ripple effects of this harm are still felt today.”

Public education on the subject of indigenous boarding schools has been spotty. Though greatly changed, a few of the schools are still in operation today. The former Carlisle school grounds are now within the National Park Service. The monument is inside the bounds of the Carlisle Barracks which host the U.S. Army War College. As a result, visitors must coordinate their trips with the college to access the space.

Some teachers throughout the state incorporate the history of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School within their curricula. The Pennsylvania Standards Aligned System offers two web-based learning resources on the subject, both centered around the school’s sports history, which produced legendary athlete Jim Thorpe.