For most students, the prerequisites for academic success include more than intro courses. To do well in a rigorous campus environment, students need a strong safety net of support that includes like-minded friends, effective mentors, and cultural affirmation. 

The student debt crisis has been in the headlines lately, and for good reason. Student loans are now second only to mortgages as the country’s principal category of consumer debt. There are more than 44 million student borrowers with a total of $1.45 trillion in debt — the average graduate from the class of 2016 entered the workforce with more than $37,000 in student loans.

I grew up in Eagle Butte, a small town on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I’m Lakota from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. My home consisted of my parents, four siblings, many cousins, and friends. My parents have huge hearts and always welcomed children into our home.

I grew up on the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Northern California for the first part of my childhood, then I moved to Karuk territory, specifically the Katamiin region, when I was in sixth grade. The town is very remote. Although the city’s sign says it has a population of 250, I swear I’ve never seen 250 people there before!

Carlson Begay’s quiet confidence is probably his most prominent character trait. “I may be shy, but I think that my shyness has helped me. I’ve met just the right number of people, and I’m glad I met some people and didn’t meet others,” he says when asked about which qualities have contributed to his success. It’s clear that Begay sees a rich world around him interconnected with the people who support his achievements.

Sofia Panarella has lived in many places, from Oregon to Montana to Rhode Island, but regardless of where she lives, she is, and always will be, a Native Hawai’ian. Moving from place to place opened Panarella’s eyes to the differences in living conditions and services available to individuals across the United States. It was these differences that pushed her to pursue a dream she didn’t even realize she had: to obtain a degree in economics and public health in order to make real change for real people, wherever she may be.

Celebration was in the air at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) this past April. A team of students from the Albuquerque, N.M., school had topped 20 other college teams to win the NASA Swarmathon. In this lively robotics competition, teams from minority-serving institutions develop computer code used by swarms of robots in an arena to autonomously find and collect the most resources. More than 500 students participated in this year’s event at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Jada Johnson grew up in Cloquet, Minn., which she calls “a smaller town, but bigger than most.” Even though she says there isn’t a lot to do around Cloquet, Johnson, Ojibwe, stays busy with extracurricular activities. As an added bonus, the organizations Johnson is a part of often allow her to travel beyond her home-town. “I’ve always been involved in things like science fairs and Upward Bound that take me places,” she says.

When Rebecca Price first enrolled at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI), she went in with a tentative plan to get her associate’s degree in business administration. But by the time she left her student orientation, she had changed her mind. Inspired by what she heard about the science department, including NASA-funded projects and student internships, Price chose to go in a completely different direction. She decided then and there to pursue a dual major in pre-engineering and AutoCAD, which meant getting her computer-aided drafting and design certificate.

During her senior year as an undergraduate at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T), a spark ignited for Kimberlynn Dawn Cameron. “A class in sustainable engineering showed me where I wanted to go with my career,” she says. “Now I’m a graduate student enrolled in a dual master’s program at SDSM&T. Starting in January 2018, I’ll be attending Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability in the Executive Master for Sustainability Leadership program.”