Researchers: Implement New Data Standards for Indigenous Students
Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty Images- Federal data collection methods have long undercounted Indigenous students.
- The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed revised standards that would better account for Indigenous identity last year.
- Researchers from the Brookings Institution and IHEP say the Trump administration needs to implement those standards.
- Whether that will happen is up in the air amid federal cuts and the fact that the first Trump administration didn’t implement similar revisions in 2017.
A monolithic approach to collecting data on Indigenous college students might soon change with new federal standards — but whether revised standards will be implemented by the Trump administration is up in the air.
Previous standards have long left behind and undercounted Indigenous students by treating them as a monolith and lumping them in with other identities, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) found in previous research.
That has meant it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of Indigenous student needs in higher education. Even under current limited data, Native students have seen an enrollment decline of nearly 40% since 2010, more than twice the national average.
Last year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed revised data standards to better count Indigenous students and “require all race and/or ethnicity categories to be treated equally in collection and tabulation,” according to the Census Bureau.
Now, researchers from the Brookings Institution and IHEP say in a new report that the Trump administration needs to implement those updated standards to get an accurate picture of student success.
Robert Maxim, a Brookings fellow, report author, and Mashpee Wampanoag citizen, told BestColleges in an interview that current standards don’t paint an accurate picture of Indigenous students.
“When Native students are treated as a monolith, it not only erases, the cultural distinction and flattens the discussion into this one that’s really not helpful around race, but it also fails to take into account the many nuances that students are going to have depending on the situation that they’re starting with in life,” Maxim said.
The report addresses Native students, meaning those who identify as “American Indian and Alaskan Native” — AI/AN within federal data sets. The IHEP has noted in past reports that not all Indigenous individuals are counted in those data sets under current collection methods.
IHEP senior research analyst Janiel Santos, another of the report’s authors, told BestColleges that better data would lead to better policies.
“By having more accurate data, there can be better policy decisions,” Santos said. “When we’re treating Native students like a monolith, it’s harder to be able to find the right interventions or policies that are really going to be supporting them in their success for postsecondary education.”
Previous efforts to change standards have faltered. Similar changes were introduced during the Obama administration in 2016, but the Trump administration never implemented those changes.
Add to that the Trump administration’s cutting of the federal workforce and its goal to dissolve the Department of Education, which Maxim said would threaten the implementation of new data standards.
“This type of stuff cannot be done if the priority is gutting congressionally enacted federal agencies like the Department of Education or cutting off contracts that go to organizations that support and enable our federal statistical agencies,” Maxim said.
Inaccurate Data Standards
Federal data collection as it stands leaves Indigenous students behind.
IHEP previously found that Indigenous students are grouped together in higher education data. Data standards treat Indigenous students as a monolith despite the fact that there are 574 federally recognized tribes and even more at the state and local levels.
Previous data collection methods defined “American Indian and Alaskan Native” — AI/AN — as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.”
The OMB revised that language in March 2024 to remove the language “who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment” and instead defined AI/AN as “individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, and South America, including, for example, Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government, Nome Eskimo Community, Aztec, and Maya.”
It also changed previous standards around designating Hispanic or Latino/a individuals. The old standards counted Hispanic or Latino/a individuals as anyone of “Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.”
That “regardless of race” language meant an Indigenous student with Hispanic ancestry was automatically counted as Hispanic or Latino/a regardless of their tribal affiliation. IHEP found in its previous research that those collection methods led to an undercount of Indigenous students.
The revised OMB standards would amend that to remove “regardless of race,” meaning students who identify as AI/AN will no longer be automatically put into the Hispanic or Latino/a category.
Additionally, Maxim said in an earlier interview that current standards bucket all students who mark more than one race as multiracial. Only 61% of Native Americans are single race, he said, meaning 2 in 5 Native students are excluded in federal data from this point alone.
“That’s the end of the conversation,” he said. “If you’re a Black Native American, you’re in the same racial group as a white Asian.”
Combined with the Hispanic question, Maxim estimates that only 20-23% of Native college students are being properly counted.
“Basically, higher ed in its default data excludes 80% of Native students,” he said. “There’s just no way to track them.”
The OMB last year gave federal agencies 18 months to develop an action plan and said they must comply with the revised data standards by 2029.
Not All New Approaches Will Work
The OMB’s directive outlines three ways that agencies, including the Department of Education, could implement new data collection standards. But the researchers say one of these approaches would prolong current data issues.
The approaches are:
Alone or in combination: This approach would count students who identify as AI/AN in combination with another race or ethnicity. Based on the authors’ analysis, only 1% of students identify as AI/AN only, while 5% identify as AI/AN in addition to another race or ethnicity.
This approach would lead to “higher, more accurate enrollment estimates for Native American students,” according to the Brookings report, but since it isn’t mutually exclusive, percentages across categories could add up to more than 100%.
Kimberly Dancy, IHEP director of research, told BestColleges that it would be a “big improvement over the current approach to data collection and reporting.”
“I think the alone or in combination approach really addresses a lot of the concerns that we have with the current standards in terms of undercounting of Native students and gives a more inclusive and holistic picture of the population of Native students in terms of their enrollment, their financial aid and completion, and post-college outcomes,” Dancy said.
Most frequent multiple responses: With this approach, ED would report on various combinations of race and ethnicity that meet predefined population thresholds. It would mean more specific data and separate out various identities, but it might leave out subgroups with smaller populations.
Dancy said the most frequent multiple responses approach would have value in understanding Indigenous student populations but added the complexity might be a challenge.
“It gets really involved, really quickly,” Dancy said.
Combined multiracial and/or multiethnic. This approach is similar to the current practice, meaning students who identify as AI/AN in combination with another race or ethnicity would be put into a single multiracial and multiethnic category.
“The authors collectively were very opposed to the approach three that was included, which is most similar to the current race and ethnicity reporting standards and does a real disservice, particularly to Native students, as well as lots of other populations,” Dancy said.
“It really just flattens the diversity of students’ experiences by combining all multiracial students into a single category.”
Accurate Data as a Tool, and a Treaty Obligation
The new data standards face barriers to implementation.
Cuts to federal agencies, plans to dissolve ED, and the fact that the previous Trump administration didn’t implement similar standards back in 2017 don’t exactly paint an optimistic picture of the data standards’ future.
The Trump administration did, however, announce updated race/ethnicity data questions for the upcoming 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that would bring the form closer to compliance with OMB’s directive.
There’s also been attacks on colleges’ DEI measures at both the state and federal levels.
But report authors say the new data standards would mean more efficient use of federal funds.
Dancy said data alone won’t be enough to solve the challenges Indigenous students face in higher education, but it would be a “critical first step” to understanding how to serve students.
Having an accurate picture of Indigenous students would be “a huge step in the right direction toward providing supports and designing programs and ensuring funding is allocated in ways that better serve students,” Dancy said.
Maxim said the supports to Native communities shouldn’t be seen as a DEI or race-based measure but rather a fulfillment of the U.S. government’s treaties with tribal governments.
“This is the U.S. fulfilling its trust and treaty obligations to Native tribes and Native people,” Maxim said. “The obligations are for tribes, collectively, and for Native individual people, and that is how the U.S. government needs to be thinking about this.”
“I’ve, as an individual scholar, really taken a position that the reason this data is so important, the reason the way we talk about and write about and include Native people in data or exclude them, is because the terminology around data shapes how we as a country collectively think about identity groups.”
Federal standards also require Native student enrollment to be above 10% to qualify for tribal colleges and universities (TCU) funding.
Maxim said that by undercounting Indigenous students, colleges and universities may lose out on vital funds. Or, they are forced to petition the Department of Education if they believe federal data does not accurately capture Native student enrollment.
“You’re basically creating a whole extra step for institutions that are probably some of the less-resourced institutions [in the U.S.],” he said.
Maxim also emphasized that accurate data collection requires a solid federal infrastructure.
“It’s really important to think about all of this in the current moment of concern on federal disinvestment and the dissolution of certain federal agencies, including Education, and making sure we have the infrastructure and the federal workers and the support organizations that can enable all this is hugely important,” Maxim said.
Santos said accurate data is critical to help institutions make evidence-based decisions.
“I think what’s really important here is that the Trump administration follows through on implementing these standards,” Santos said. “In 2016, there were some similar reforms that were happening or proposed, but they were never actually implemented under that first administration. So this is the time to take action and implement them now, so that we can make that change.”