Volume 32 Number 2
January 1993

Don-Paul Benjamin, Stephen Chambers, and Gary Reiterman

A number of studies of student persistence in higher education concentrate on the characteristics of students who fail to persist (Bennett & Bean, 1984; Loo & Robison, 1986; Munro, 1981; Pascarella & Chapman, 1983; Spady, 1970; Tinto, 1975, 1987, 1988). Considering the individual, fiscal, and societal costs associated with the failure to complete college, it is not uncommon for this type of research to particularly address the higher rates of attrition found among ethnic minorities who have long struggled to enter and succeed in higher education. Furthermore, a new sense of urgency is now attached to resolving the minority dropout dilemma because ethnic minorities are fast approaching numerical dominance in certain sections of the nation, particularly in the American southwest.

In this fast-growing region, population projections indicate that by the start of the 21st century, the majority of people under 30 will be members of an ethnic minority group (American Council on Education and the Education Commission of the States, 1988; Fields, 1988; Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 1987, 1988; Winston & Justiz, 1988). Whether this new majority population "will be afforded appropriate opportunities to enter, perform, and succeed in higher education," or whether its members "may never benefit from the intellectual development, humanistic appreciation, potential employment, and economic advancement which stem from a college education," has largely been framed as a question of access to, and persistence in, America's colleges and universities (Cibik & Chambers, 1991).

In considering the phenomenon of departure from college, the major constructs of Tinto's model (Tinto, 1987) have largely withstood the test of time (Aitken, 1982; Baumgart & Johnstone, 1977; Munro, 1981; Pascarella & Chapman, 1983; Terenzini, 1978, 1980; Terenzini & Pascarella, 1977; Terenzini, Pascarella, Theophilidels, & Lorang, 1985). In general, Tinto's model maintains that the student is influenced by a wide range of experiences both prior to college and upon matriculation. These experiences, depending upon the student's interaction with them, may tend to pull him or her toward, or away from, an ideal state of social and intellectual integration into the acdemic and social communities of college (Tinto, 1987). For students in general, separation from past communities and memberships, coupled with the often bewildering challenges of college life, contribute to departure (Cope & Hannah, 1975; Lamont, 1979; Tinto, 1988). Minority students are at especially high risk of "malintegration" (Loo & Robison, 1986; Nora, 1987). Moreover, for many minority students at predominately White institutions, the necessary social, cultural, and mental adjustments are often simply insurmountable (Allen, 1987; Beckham, 1988). Barriers encountered by minorities may be exacerbated by the institution or by the students' peers and they may take the form of overt discrimination or uninformed indifference.

There seems little doubt that, for many young people, making a sufficient adjustment to college to persist and graduate is a formidable challenge. It seems equally clear that the challenge of college adjustment is often arduous for those from ethnic minority groups; this has been particularly so for American Indians. Among minorities striving to complete college, American Indians have long been reported to be among the least, if not the least, successful (Astin, 1982; Falk & Aitken, 1984; Tijerina & Biemer, 1988). Barriers to the success of American Indians may be similar to those faced by other ethnic minorities in striving to adjust to the college environment, but for American Indians such barriers may also be rooted in central differences in perception of the world and cognitive style (Osborne, 1985; Topper, 1972; Werner, Schoepfle, Bouck, Roan, & Yazzie, 1976). Furthermore, cultural differences on the part of American Indians may place them more at odds with the dominant culture.

It seems rare, given cultural, world-view, and cognitive obstacles, that any American Indians–especially those who strive to maintain their cultural identity can succeed in a higher education system dominated by the powerful and persuasive influences of the White majority culture. And yet, they do. Despite the rarity of this achievement, or perhaps because of it, little attention has been focused on American Indian achievers. This extraordinary group is the subject of the present study. We have chosen to focus on this relatively select group because we feel the tone of existing research tends to discount the achievements of American Indians.

In its extreme, research on ethnic minority students which focuses primary attention on those who fail can project the prejudicial, ethnocentric majority attitude that certain cultural groups are inherently deficient in their ability to persist in the college environment. Such a focus, apart from its racial overtones, can foster lowered expectations on the part of college teachers and administrations, and lowered aspirations on the part of minority students themselves. For this reason, we have elected to move from the relatively negative position of studying American Indian dropouts to a more positive approach by focusing attention on the successes of persisting American Indians.

Our methodology involved the use of a combination of statistical approaches and qualitative social science research techniques, specifically the interview. The interview was employed because American Indians differ in persistence and educational attainment from most college students including other ethnic minorities and because the reasons for these differences are not readily apparent through quantitative, statistical analysis.

The most common methodology used to study college persistence is to employ statistics, usually including multi-variate analysis, run against longitudinal databases of student enrollment and demographic variables to correlate and predict those types of students who are likely to stay in colleges and those who are likely to depart (Bohannon, 1988; Gosman, Dandridge, Nettles, & Thoeny, 1983; Howard & Rogers, 1991; Lenning, Beal, & Sauer, 1980; Lichtman, Bass, & Ager, 1989; St. John, 1991; Szeszycki & Smith, 1990; Thompson & Fretz, 1991). Such statistical studies tend to yield observable correlations. However, when the authors conducted a standard statistical treatment of American Indian college persistence, this approach proved to hold little correlational or predictive value. To better understand the issues involved, a more qualitative search was initiated and aimed at developing insights by questioning American Indian persisters. In this manner, individual and collective testimony was gathered to narrow the gaps of knowledge not addressed through statistical evidence.

The combination of qualitative and quantitative methods used in this study are applicable not only to American Indian populations, but also hold the promise of providing researchers with insights into the persistence of students from other ethnic cultures, as well as college students in general.

The population used in this study consisted of 166 new first-time full-time American Indian freshmen enrolling at a medium-size southwestern state university. The study population consists of the entering cohorts for both fall 1984 and 1985.

Although members of over 20 distinctive tribes are represented in the university's student body, most American Indians in attendance are southwest tribal members. The majority of the study population indicated they were Navajo, with members of the Alaskan Aleut, Hopi, Laguna Pueblo, Nambe Pueblo, San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache, and Zuni also represented. The study population, and study results, are therefore regionally, perhaps tribally, influenced and are not necessarily reflective of the rest of the United States' indigenous populations which have different cultures and relationships with the dominate society.

The characteristics of the study population resembled those of American Indian students in general at this institution, who in total exceed some 800 persons during a typical fall or spring semester. Demographic factors of the study population included:

• 62% were female;
• average age at college entry was 19 years, with a range of 17 to 35 years of age;
• 20% were admitted to the university on condition (on probation, or with specific requirements to make up academic deficiencies);
• most graduated from a rural Arizona or a reservation high school.

A review of the study population's academic traits indicated that a small portion had performed well in high school, and thus had demonstrated commonly accepted competencies for college success. Most, however, exhibited marginal academic traits. Of those providing high school and ACT information, the following academic profile was assembled:

• 40% had graduated in the top one-quarter of their high school class, 69% had graduated in the top one-half of their class;
• the mean high school graduation rank percentile was 60;
• the mean ACT composite score was 13.8, with a low score of 5 and a high score of 26. (This score is slightly lower than the national mean of 14.5 for American Indian freshmen, and substantially below the national mean of 18.8 for all freshmen in fall 1984.)

Over a 6-year study period, the population of 166 new first-time, full-time American Indian freshmen demonstrated low rates of persistence. From the original cohort, 49% continued uninterrupted study after I year. Twenty-eight percent remained after 2 years, and one-quarter after 3 years. During the period of study, 9% of the original cohort re-enrolled after stopping out at least one semester. Five students had graduated by the end of the 4 years, and 13 had graduated after 5 years. A total of 26 students (16%) had graduated during the study period.

Such low persistence rates signal a disparity compared to recent national trends where 40% of 1981 entering freshmen had completed an undergraduate degree or persisted after 4 years (Cooperative Institutional Research program, 1986). However, this low rate of persistence is not uncommon among other cohorts of American Indian/Alaska Native college students (Arizona Board of Regents, 1989; Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 1984; University of Alaska System of Higher Education, 1989).

When the persistence and competencies of the American Indian group were compared to non-American Indian groups the following patterns were observed.

Table I
Six Year Comparison of Academic Performance Measures
of Entering American Indian Freshman Persisters

Typical for both American Indian and non-American Indian groups, the study found that:

• traditional age students entering college at 18 years tended to persist at higher rates than more mature students;
• a larger portion of persisters were represented in the top one-quarter of their graduating high school class;
• longer term persisters had measurably higher ACT composite scores than the entering cohort;
• students entering the university on conditional admittance did not persist at the same rate as unconditional admits;
• the mean cumulative grade point average of persisters increased with subsequent semesters in attendance. The cumulative GPA of fourth year persisters was 0.72 of a grade point higher than that of the entering cohort.

Unique to the American Indian group, the study found:

• American Indians who had marginal pre-college academic attributes (in terms of high school graduating class rank), were represented among long-term persisters. Conversely, many who had done well in high school did not persist.
• While the average composite ACT score for long-term American Indian persisters was above that of the entering cohort, a nearly equal number at both ends of this range did not persist.

Table 2

Six Year Comparison of Characteristics of Entering American Indian Freshman Persisters

Standards for college admission have been in place for decades and such standards are applied to nearly all groups of students seeking college entrance. Accepted criteria for college entrance across the nation include pre-college academic factors, such as high school grade average and high school rank, and scores on standardized achievement tests such as the ACT or SAT. Admission standards using these criteria are widespread and are founded on their association with college achievement and their predictive value in identifying those who will succeed in college and those who will not. However, in the case of American Indians these measures are less than reliable predictors of college success–a clear indication that the current understanding of persistence gained from college students at large cannot necessarily be applied to American Indians. In this study the relationship of high school graduation rank and composite ACT scores was compared to cumulative grade average 2 years after entrance for both the American Indian students as well as an equal-number test cohort of White students.

For White students, correlation statistics suggest at least modest reliability and predictability between college cumulative grade average for persisters and high school rank (r = .377, p<.005) as well as composite ACT score (r = .375; p<.005). In the case of American Indian persisters little reliability or predictability was found. Cumulative college grade average for this cohort was not significantly associated with their high school rank (r = .24 1, p<.005) or composite ACT score (r =.098, p<.005). In effect, an American Indian who had made good grades in high school, who graduated at the top of his or her high school class, and had done well on the ACT exam was just as likely to struggle with college academics, as was an American Indian who had measured deficiencies in these criteria. By the same token, those with less than ideal high school grades, high school class rank, or composite ACT scores were as likely to succeed as those with apparently stronger grades, ranks, and scores. Clearly this finding points to an anomaly. Current notions of persistence and attrition suggest, by and large, that measurably stronger students prevail and weaker students drop out. Yet, something else appears to be operating among American Indians; something for which standard measures appear unable to account. We were searching for that "something" and in doing so we chose an alternative route.

This section of our report contains excerpts from interviews with American Indian students from the study population conducted between February 1988 and March 1989. A total of 11 students (seven women and four men) were interviewed. Despite attempts to involve members from various tribes, only Navajos agreed to participate in this component of the study. This tends to give our interviews a decidedly tribal focus. Four interviewees were students who had "dropped-out" after their freshmen year, but had returned during the time of the study. The remainder were persisters. For study purposes, all 11 were viewed as persisters.

All interview sessions were conducted in informal "group rooms" used for group meetings and group therapy. The rooms were comfortably furnished with couches and easy chairs and were removed from high traffic areas. Opening sessions were not tape recorded, but–with student permission–remaining sessions were. The most individual sessions conducted with a student were five; the fewest were two.

The students spoke–sometimes reluctantly, sometimes freely–with the understanding that notes and tapes would be transcribed, but not attributed directly to them. Names are fictitious and are used primarily to communicate gender to the reader. More than 11 fictitious names are employed to ensure that a student cannot be identified by assembling a composite of responses. These measures, though perhaps not required by the sensitivity of the subject matter, were undertaken out of respect for the students' expressed desire for anonymity.

As for grammar and syntax, the reader should remember that responses were made in informal, conversational sessions where rules of formal speech did not apply. Responses should not, therefore, be interpreted as evidence that these students are more or less articulate than their age peers of other races. Interviews were often punctuated with lengthy periods of silence, a phenomenon which appears typical of an American Indian tendency to "process" before speaking.

The format for each of the following sections includes a brief statement of the issue or question which we are attempting to clarify followed by representative interview excerpts, and a brief conclusion exploring subject "testimony".

When Thomas Wolfe penned that insightful tide, he apparently had in mind the impracticality of the human tendency to cling to the familiar. We lament that our modern, transient lives pull us far from our roots; far from family and known surroundings. Consider that an American Indian student feels this same desire for continuity. And consider also that his or her desire is rooted solidly in centuries of tradition. And, finally, consider that the issue of to go or not to go home is, for an American Indian, much more than a philosophical question. When an American Indian in the present study speaks of "going home", he or she is not merely referring to a brief commute. Navajos, for example, could live anywhere on a reservation of 25,516 square miles (about the size of West Virginia) and round-trips home might range from 100 to in excess of 500 miles. Furthermore, transportation is limited. Few students have cars and the family vehicle is often committed to other projects, so students may share rides, ride a bus part-way, hitchhike, or often walk some distance. In general, going home can be a complex and potentially disruptive undertaking.

Researchers have attempted to verify that a tendency for American Indian students to frequently return home during the school week is at least partially influenced by family and ceremonial responsibilities. One survey of student attitudes and activities found that 56.8% of the 155 American Indian respondents indicated a need to go home often compared to 31.6% of Blacks, 24.4% of Hispanics, and 16.7% of Anglos (Cibik & Chambers, 1991). Furthermore, American Indians also reported a tendency to go home to help their families, or to attend ceremonies or special activities, even when such trips meant missing classes. Subsequent interviews with American Indian students revealed that students realize the detrimental consequences of missing class, although such consequences cannot be equated in importance to other more personal priorities. Understanding this phenomena is a key facet in examining the persistence of American Indians in higher education.

Despite the fact that educators tend to view excessive going home behavior as negative, or as a sign of student immaturity, our interviews on the going home issue elicited mostly responses which reflect a different set of cultural considerations. Here are some interview excerpts:

If the need and desire to go home are culturally dictated, then going home represents an obligation with which American Indian students must come to terms. Those interviewed expressed a belief that going home was not necessarily negative: they managed their studies despite frequent visits home. While at home, they seemed to encounter encouragement and support.

Perhaps those for whom frequent home visits were a negative factor (in the sense that those visits pulled them away from the campus rather than reinforcing their student role), have already left the university, and the persisters who remain represent those who reached a workable solution to integrating home visits with school obligations. If having reached such a solution is evidence of behavior which leads to college persistence, there appears to be little that colleges have done to acknowledge this since going home continues to be viewed as a factor contributing to attrition rather than as a challenge to which some American Indian students can and do respond with behaviors favoring persistence. Whatever the case, it appears insufficient to simply ask the question, "Do you go home frequently?" and assume that a "yes" answer necessarily represents a deficiency.

All subjects reported that they made their decision to attend college early in life some as early as elementary school; others no later than junior high school. Here are two responses:

Interview subjects expressed concern that belated recruitment of otherwise non-college-bound American Indians works against their success. The prudence and ethical considerations of encouraging reluctant students to enroll at a university on short notice seem to warrant further study. It is important to note that subjects interviewed were equally concerned about the belated recruitment of scholastically marginal and academically achieving students. At issue was the timing and the source of their decision to attend college coupled with the longevity of their commitment.

Competency may be enhanced by a student's early personal commitment to schooling. Perhaps earlier intervention can foster earlier commitment on the part of American Indian learners. Then too, perhaps newly ("late") committed secondary school students with limited records of school success could be aided in setting more realistic educational goals than immediate matriculation into a competitive four-year college setting. By starting post-secondary work in a more appropriate environment (for example, a two-year community college transfer program closer to home), a student may develop the competencies required to later continue on for a bachelor's degree.

Recently, local studies have explored the premise that American Indian cultural orientation can be a factor in college performance. Schwartz (1985) interviewed a random sample of American Indian students to determine their perceptions of campus social and academic life. In her study, she tabulated the results of interviews into frequency distributions and performed a cluster analysis for similar characteristics. From this she developed five "type" groups relative to their cultural orientation. These she placed on a continuum from "traditional" (with respect to American Indian culture), to "bicultural", to "acculturated" (into the dominant White culture). One of the five type groups was assessed as traditional, one as bicultural, and three as demonstrating varying degrees of acculturation. She reported that groups defined as more acculturated were least successful while bicultural and traditional students were most successful in school.

This conclusion differs from historical ideas of American Indian success in school. McDermott (1974) contended that bicultural students are at a disadvantage since they are faced with the unenviable task of trying to master two diverse and mutually exclusive cultures. In a study of American Indians attending Haskell Institute, Carroll (1978) found that traditional students fared poorer on academic measures than did nontraditionals and that traditionals were more likely to drop out than were nontraditionals.

Schiller (1987) in a detailed study examined the relationship between levels of acculturation and psychosocial adjustment of American Indian university students. She identified four levels of acculturation: 1) bicultural, 2) Anglicized, 3) American Indian oriented, and 4) marginal. Psychosocial adjustment factors included academic factors, social factors, psychological factors, and cultural factors. In general, she found that bicultural students demonstrated better psychosocial adjustment than non-bicultural students.

These studies have in common the challenge of defining what constitutes such conditions as "bicultural," "traditional," and so forth, so that it can be determined whether a given individual is, in a sense, fish or fowl. Our interview subjects speculated about such tendencies by responding to the task of placing hypothetical individuals on a continuum stretching from "traditional American Indian" to "typical White person." They also shared notions of how a person in the middle of such a continuum might be described. Finally, they were asked to place on the continuum themselves, their on-campus American Indian friends, and their same-age American Indian friends still on the reservation, or "back home." Below are representative results:

All 11 subjects placed themselves in the middle range of the continuum leaning in varying degrees toward White. In contrast about one-half placed their American Indian college friends leading toward traditional; another one-fourth placed these friends near the center leaning toward White; and one-fourth were placed near the center. All placed their American Indian "back home" friends near the "traditional" end of the continuum.

In studies of the effects of American Indian traditionality on school success, language maintenance is viewed as a strong factor in assessing level of traditionality. Our interview subjects did not place a strong emphasis on language as a traditional trait except to suggest that knowledge of the native language alone, or predominant knowledge of the native language over English, are factors which might interfere with school success.

It is interesting to note that these 11 persisters seem to have adopted the idea that White traits are associated with success in White society, yet maintenance of traditional traits to some degree is important to them. An ability to adopt new traits while maintaining a traditional perspective may be a characteristic of persisters. If so, it is a characteristic which is only marginally reinforced by colleges where indeed the expectation appears to be that academic success is almost exclusively associated with assimilation into the dominant culture. Meanwhile, observers and researchers more sensitive to cultural diversity. are finding that school competence is associated with some level of maintenance of native culture. Perhaps if otherwise qualified American Indian students did not feel that their desire to maintain traditional ties was in conflict with their student role, they would be more likely to fill the requirements of an undergraduate education.

It is granted of course, that acculturation and self-perception are not static features of an individual's make-up. All individuals experience change from a variety of internal and external forces. These student perceptions of themselves can change over the course of college attendance, and throughout their lives. However, at the time of the interviews, each student had as much as 5 years of college experience, and therefore each was probably in a position to comment on the acculturating influences of college on their own lives, and the lives of their contemporaries.

We believe that researchers can employ a combination of traditional statistical analysis and social science interview techniques to gain insights into the persistence in college of American Indians. One thing is clear: future studies need to take a cross-cultural/multi-tribal approach to exploring persistence. The insights which emerge will hopefully allow for cultural diversity especially the appreciation and accommodation of non-majority cultures.

We believe that all students–Anglos, American Indians, and other minorities; persisters and dropouts–approach the college challenge from a unique cultural base. We further believe that a distorted view of student strengths and needs 'relative to persistence is obtained when an inappropriate ethnocentric model is used as a reference point in examining persistence. Behaviors which enhance persistence can take a wide variety of forms and by using the wrong model as a point of reference, such behaviors can be erroneously interpreted as leading to non-persistence. At issue, we believe, is whether behaviors which enhance persistence and which are valid in minority cultures are recognized, supported, rewarded, and valued by the dominate culture. To the extent that this occurs, persistence is enhanced.

Perhaps the abysmal attrition of American Indians from college is somehow tied to higher education's often unconscious insistence that they be pushed in the direction of an inappropriate notion of conforming to dominant culture persistence-enhancing behaviors. More accurately, it may be that higher education is not sufficiently informed and sensitive enough to recognize or to value this culture's multi-faceted manifestation of persistence behaviors. As a result, today's higher education systems may be largely predisposed to label as deficient any behavior or characteristic which fails to meet the dominant culture's preordained view of persistence. A move toward understanding and valuing cultural diversity will ultimately benefit American Indian college students, institutions of higher education, and American society.