And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: Pat Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Senators team up to get money for Indian education WASHINGTON (AP) - Ten senators from Indian Country have teamed up to seek an additional $6.4 million in federal money for American Indian colleges, saying current support has not kept up with increased enrollment. "Improving the quality of education is one of the most important strategies we can take to address the levels of poverty and despair that exist in South Dakota," said Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., the principal sponsor. "We've got to empower individual Native Americans to take control of their own lives." Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Max Baucus, D-Mont. are among nine co-sponsors. Burns also has a separate amendment of $700,000 that, combined with Johnson's, would restore the entire $7.1 million requested by the Clinton administration but cut by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The full Senate takes up the Interior Department budget today and is likely to vote on Johnson's amendment in the next couple of weeks. Johnson's amendment would raise the annual federal contribution to about $38 million. Most of the nation's 31 tribal colleges, which serve about 25,000 students, are funded by the Interior Department. A 1978 federal law authorized Congress to spend $5,820 per student, but that figure has dwindled in the last few years as enrollment has increased. Without an increase, the per-student rate would fall to $2,700 next year from $2,900 this year, said Ron McNeil, president of Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D. "We're a victim of our own success," said McNeil, who is the great-great-great-grandson of Chief Sitting Bull. "As more and more students graduate college, they become role models. They're usually the first generation to go to college." McNeil said his college has already cut an academic crisis counselor position in next year's budget, in anticipation of receiving no increase from Congress. Students pay about $1,900 a year in tuition, with the federal aid paying for things like faculty salaries, infrastructure and counselor positions, McNeil said. Tribal colleges, mostly two-year schools, rely exclusively on federal funding, tuition revenue and private grants. The average community college, by contrast, gets $4,600 in state and local aid per student annually. "Without increased appropriations, we're losing money each year," said Veronica Gonzalez, executive director of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Johnson said tribal colleges are "grossly and chronically underfunded. . . . We're not talking about lavish expenditures." Other co-sponsors are Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and John McCain R-Ariz. http://www.billingsgazette.com/region/990908_reg10.html http://wolfseeker.com http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb629759 http://www.sunlink.net/~wlfskr
