The University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kuskokwim Campus (KuC) will not be facing any immediate changes following recent federal cuts to a program supporting the university.
Last week, the United States Department of Education announced that it would stop funding certain minority-serving programs in higher education, clawing back a total sum of $350 million in grants.
The department originally allocated the program funds to award to universities with a certain percentage of historically underserved minority students. The program started in 1998 to support Hispanic-serving institutions after statistics showed Latino students were graduating at much lower rates than white students.
The department said that it believes awarding grants to serve certain ethnic populations of students is unconstitutional. It pulled the plug on funding for seven such grant programs.
One was the Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions program. With portions of the grant program closed, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) as a whole will lose around $8.8 million that it was slated to receive over the next few years. That amount comes from three separate grants, one of which supports UAF’s Bristol Bay Campus. The other two support the Anchorage-based Community and Technical College.
“Though there is a quota of student body, in this case Alaska Natives, to receive the funding, the funding itself is used and can be used to support every student, regardless of race or ethnicity,” said Bryan Uher, UAF's interim vice chancellor of rural, community, and Native education.
Uher said that the recent loss of funding won’t trickle down into the Bethel satellite campus.
“Currently there should be no effect or change on the Kuskokwim Campus due to this discontinuation for future impacts,” Uher said.
The federal funding that gets funneled into the program is broken into two categories. The portion that was discontinued, called "Part A," does not currently fund KuC.
However, Uher said that there was an award KuC did apply for this summer and now will not get the chance to receive. It’s funding that, if awarded, would have supported programming for students and possibly other staff positions.
The campus does receive federal funding from that second bucket of the Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institution program, called "Part F." This funding supports faculty and staff positions and currently remains intact, but Uher said that there is a possibility that could change.
“What we have heard and what we've seen from the [U.S.] Department of Education, specifically from Secretary McMahon, was a statement from her saying that they are going to be reenvisioning these programs to support institutions that serve underrepresented students that do not have a race quota,” Uher said.
Uher said that this "reimagining" of who should get these grants could impact KuC going forward.
“We just don't know what the future of Part F awards will be at this point,” Uher said.
KuC receives funding in three main branches — state appropriated funds, revenue from tuition, and grant funding. According to Uher, about a third of the campus’ funding comes from grants; within that, the Part F award is the largest federal grant the campus receives.
The current grant given to the Kuskokwim Campus is about $5 million, rolled out over five years. It's at the tail end of its timeline — the award will conclude in September 2026, requiring KuC to reapply.
