Sec. 2. Findings and purpose
331 words·~2 min read·
/bill/113/s/765/is/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds the following: Nontribal colleges that serve Native American Indian students have a valuable supplemental role to that provided by tribally controlled community colleges in making available educational opportunities to Native American Indian students. Some 4-year colleges serve Native American Indian students by providing tuition-free education, with the support of the State in which the institutions are located, as mandated by Federal statute, to hundreds of Native American Indian students in fulfillment of a condition under which the United States provided land and facilities for colleges to a State or college.
The value of the Native American Indian student tuition waiver benefits contributed by these colleges and the States that support them today far exceeds the value of the original grant of land and facilities. The ongoing financial burden of meeting this Federal mandate to provide tuition-free education to Native American Indian students is no longer equitably shared among the States and colleges because it does not distinguish between Native American Indian students who are residents of the State or of another State.
In fiscal year 2012, the State of Colorado paid approximately $13,000,000 in tuition fees to support the education of Native American Indian students at Fort Lewis College in Colorado. In the State of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota waived $2,600,000 in tuition for Native American Indian students in fiscal year 2012. Native American Indian student tuition waiver benefits are now at risk of being terminated by severe budget constraints being experienced by these colleges and the States which support them.
It is the purpose of this Act to ensure that Federal funding is provided in order to relieve constrained State education budgets and to support and sustain the longstanding Federal mandate requiring colleges and States to waive, in certain circumstances, tuition charges for Native American Indian students admitted to an undergraduate college program, including the waiver of tuition charges for Native American Indian students who are not residents of the State in which the college is located.