The U.S Department of Education has cut a grant that funds about half of the faculty and staff at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Bristol Bay Campus. The grant is set to expire at the end of the federal fiscal year.
Bryan Uher, UAF's Interim Vice Chancellor for Rural, Community and Native Education, said the grant is paying for seven of the 14 faculty and staff members currently working at the Bristol Bay campus.
"This is unique funding in that it does not fund student aid or anything like that. It funds positions," Uher said.
The Bristol Bay Campus serves 30 Bristol Bay communities and 12 communities in the Aleutian-Pribilof Islands. It served 642 enrolled students in 2023.
The campus received the grant in 2023 and would have gotten $3.9 million over the course of five years. Uher said the loss amounts to $1.5 million over the next three years.
The canceled funding came from Title III of the federal Higher Education Act. The Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian serving institutions appropriation supports universities where at least 20% of students are Indigenous. The U.S Department of Education canceled several such grants to minority-serving universities, which they deemed discriminatory for linking federal money to racial quotas.
But Uher said the funding supports all students at the campus, regardless of race and ethnicity, through faculty and staff positions.
"This particular grant for Bristol Bay was funding student support, advising, coaching, financial aid support, and some faculty to teach pre-college courses like English and math," he said.
Uher said the campus will be able to keep the affected staff members though next September because the federal government is allowing the university to take until the end of the fiscal year to close out its grant programs using funds that have already been allocated.
Uher said they submitted a formal request for a funding extension through the remainder of the five year grant period right before the government shut down. As of Friday, they had not heard back.
Tav Amu, Bristol Bay's Alaska Sea Grant marine advisory agent, testified before the UA Board of Regents on Nov. 3 about the lost funding. Amu doesn't work directly for the campus but said his position and the trainings he offers rely on campus infrastructure.
Amu said two employees have already left the campus this year, and the remaining staff are facing an increased workload and decreased support system.
"I'm concerned about how many other employees we anticipate will leave the campus," Amu said. "How many students will we stop serving because of loss of employees, and at best an uncertain future?"
On Sept. 18, Alaska's U.S. senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, along with 10 other senators, signed a letter to U.S Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, calling for the funding to continue.
The senators said the cut jeopardizes the existence of colleges serving American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians and undermines the federal government's trust and treaty obligations to Native students.
"The Department's decision to reprogram this critical source of funding for these colleges jeopardizes not just their continued existence, but also undermines the federal government's trust and treaty obligations to provide Native students an education." The letter states, adding that Congress set the money aside to fulfill programs that are in law.
Uher said the federal delegation continues to work on behalf of reinstating this funding.
"We are wanting to give them the respect and time to do their advocacy efforts in D.C.," Uher said. "So we are hoping that now that the federal government is back up again, we can hear something by the end of this year."
Uher said that in the meantime, the university is looking for other funding sources.
"So we are absolutely trying to keep our options and we are trying to find other sources of funding, but we just don't have anything definitive at this date in time," he said.
Uher said they still need to go through the state legislative process come January to see how much state funding the university will get.
Disclosure: Tav Amu serves on KDLG's advisory committee.
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