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AMERICAN INDIAN WOMEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION

There are 52,000 American Indian women in higher education. They have returned to further their education for several reasons. Many women feel confined by their homes and families and desire to possess a life and career of their own. Some seek to enter Native American politics to work on resolving the problems that currently plague their tribes and reservations. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles facing Native American women who seek a college degree.

These women are generally non-traditional college students, meaning they are older than the typical student and have other obligations in life such as jobs and families.
The average Native American female student is over 27 years old and has about 2.8 children to care for. The difficulty these factors create must be astounding. Even traditional students seem to find difficulty in making time for studying and part-time work. Having a full-time job, the full-time responsibility of parenting, and lacking the necessary prepatory skills for college courses would be completely overwhelming. They also have not been exposed to female role models of their own culture who are strong and determined to receive a higher education, as most white women have been.
Being a minority at an institution of higher education certainly creates another obstacle for these women. Their belief systems, traditions, and ceremonies are not often understood or recognized, and they find themselves being stereotyped and pressured to speak for all Native Americans. At state colleges, they are frustrated and saddened by being taught the bias and often incorrect histories from the European standpoint, instead of their own. Some schools even display offensive and insensitive Indian mascots at sporting and other events.
Another great difficulty they must overcome is the often unseen institutional racism, which encourages minority students to sell themselves short and attend two-year colleges or trade schools instead of living up to their personal goals and full potential. Women are often finding themselves viewed differently and are often marginalized after returning to their reservations with a "white man's education".
Fortunately, there are Native Americans who work tirelessly to provide higher education on reservations that are relevant to their people. For instance, Faith Smith, a Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibway / Chippewa, co-founded the Native American Educational Services

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