American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students in California have made significant progress in some areas but still face persistent challenges that demand immediate attention. That’s the top-level finding of a groundbreaking study released Friday by the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center (CICSC) at Cal State San Marcos.
The "State of American Indian and Alaska Native Education in California 2024" report, funded by CSUSM, shows that while AIAN high school graduation rates improved substantially from 70.54% in 2017-18 to 78.76% in 2021-2022, other critical metrics indicate ongoing disparities that require systematic change.
"While we celebrate the dramatic decrease in dropout rates from 53.53% to 13.53% over the past five years, we cannot ignore that our AIAN students continue to face significant barriers to academic success," said Joely Proudfit, director of the CICSC. "The pandemic has particularly impacted our communities, with absenteeism rates more than doubling from 21.3% to 43.6%."
Importantly, the report also highlights innovative and positive solutions and approaches.
“Our research highlights transformative programs that are moving the needle for AIAN student success,” Proudfit said. “By weaving together proven high-impact practices with culturally responsive approaches, we're creating stronger pathways to both higher education and career opportunities.”
The report, unveiled at Harrah's Resort Southern California on the Rincon reservation in Valley Center, brought together State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, tribal leaders, educators and parents to address these critical findings. The comprehensive study examines data across K-12 and higher education systems, revealing both promising trends and areas of concern.
"This report serves as both a celebration of progress and a call to action," Thurmond said. "The increased college-going rate from 47.4% to 55.9% shows that our efforts are bearing fruit, but the declining enrollment numbers in our community colleges and persistent achievement gaps in math and English language arts remind us that our work is far from complete."
Key findings include:
- a decrease in AIAN student population from 34,704 in 2015-2016 to 26,108 in 2022-2023.
- declining enrollment in California community colleges from 8,520 in 2018 to 6,575 in 2022.
- a reduction in undergraduate degrees awarded in both the UC and CSU systems.
- higher UC enrollment rates compared to CSU for AIAN students between 2018-2022.
The report spotlights successful programs driving AIAN student success, including California Indian Education for All, the Native Scholars Pathway program and strategic community college initiatives. These evidence-based approaches combine high-impact research practices with culturally responsive programming to strengthen both college access and workforce development, while highlighting the ongoing need for AIAN educators.
The report proposes transformative recommendations to advance AIAN student success, including sustainable funding for Native American curriculum development, reformed student identification protocols and expanded support systems. Key priorities include establishing American Indian student success centers across campuses, implementing comprehensive tuition and housing support for AIAN students, and developing dedicated Native American colleges within the CSU system – all critical steps toward educational equity and tribal sovereignty in higher education.
"We're at a crucial turning point," CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt said. "The data clearly shows that when we invest in culturally responsive support systems and maintain strong partnerships with tribal communities, our students thrive. It's time to scale these successful practices across our educational systems."
The CICSC report comes almost a decade after the previous study released in 2016.
For more information or to download the report online, visit www.csusm.edu/cicsc/projects/education-report.html.
About the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center
The California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center (CICSC) stands as a cornerstone of California Indigenous excellence at California State University San Marcos, where academic innovation meets tribal knowledge. As a premier research hub, CICSC advances Indigenous knowledge while cultivating the next generation of Native leaders. Our mission drives strategic partnerships with tribal nations to conduct groundbreaking research that strengthens Native communities and upholds tribal sovereignty. Through collaborative relationships between CSUSM faculty, staff, students and tribal communities, CICSC champions research initiatives that honor and preserve Indigenous ways of knowing, traditional lands, cultural practices and community values. The center's work reinforces tribal self-determination while fostering deeper connections between academia and Native nations. The CICSC mission is to foster collaborative research and community service relationships between the faculty, staff and students at CSUSM and members of tribal communities for the purpose of developing and conducting research projects that support the maintenance of sovereignty and culture within those communities.
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- Professors Recognized for Advancing Student Research, Creative ActivitiesBiology professor Dennis Kolosov and computer science professor Nahid Majd received the 2024-2025 Kerri Mowen Award, honoring their dedication to advancing undergraduate involvement in research and creative activities that go beyond the classroom. This award honors faculty and lecturers who have excelled in mentoring and guiding students in research or creative endeavors. It also recognizes those who have significantly increased the number and diversity of students involved in research. Kolosov has mentored 33 students, most belonging to groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Kolosov provides career-advancing opportunities to his students by offering co-authorship of publications and helping with conference presentations. He has two publications with student co-authors with nine more in review. Kolosov shows his dedication to mentoring students by participating in professional development opportunities. Majd has also put mentoring students at the forefront of her career since starting at CSUSM in 2014. She has mentored 40 students in research, 24 graduate students in their master’s theses and 14 undergraduate students. Majd’s mentored students were funded through Summer Scholars and the Learning Aligned Employment Program. Majd fosters diversity by mentoring first-generation, Hispanic and female students. Many of her students advance to graduate programs or secure competitive industry positions with Apple or Qualcomm. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314
- Looking Back on Successes of 2024As the end of the year approaches, many are already looking ahead to 2025. But before putting the finishing touches on your list of New Year’s resolutions, let’s take a look back at some of the most-talked-about stories of 2024. CSUSM Receives Two Gifts Totaling $20 Million, Largest in 35-Year History In a historic moment, Cal State San Marcos received two philanthropic donations totaling $20 million – the largest gifts in its 35-year history. $10 million from Price Philanthropies Foundation will create a first-of-its-kind, three-year accelerated bachelor's degree and workforce pipeline for behavioral and mental health. The other $10 million came from Daniel J. Epstein – a director of the CSUSM Foundation Board – and his wife, Phyllis. Their contribution will serve as a unique dollar-for-dollar matching gift opportunity for all CSUSM donors to double their impact across campus. Balancing Act: Master's Grad Perseveres Through Challenges A master’s of biological sciences student, Jocelyne Dates was selected last spring as the recipient of the 2024 President's Outstanding Graduate Award, the highest honor a graduating student can receive. She also received the Dean’s Award for Graduate Studies, which recognizes the accomplishments of one master’s student. Jocelyne is continuing her education by pursuing her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt. 'I Just Want to Make Him Proud and My Life to Count' Last spring, at 76 years old, Kathryn Cook walked across the graduation stage as the oldest graduate of Cal State San Marcos' class of 2024. Her path to this accomplishment was not one of a traditional four-year-and-done experience. In fact, it was 50 years in the making, with monumental life transitions and rocky hardships in between. The passing of Cook’s husband in 2019 led her to continue her education at CSUSM and graduate with a sociology degree. From the Baseball Diamond to 'The Bachelorette' Austin Ott had never watched an episode of “The Bachelorette” when he received a DM on Instagram from the show encouraging him to apply. While nervous, his communication and media studies degree from Cal State San Marcos gave him a foundation to build on. Ott’s first speech in COMM 100 gave him an idea of what being in the public eye might look like. “My time at Cal State San Marcos was probably the best years of my life,” said Ott, who graduated in 2019. “There’s nothing better than playing the game you love and being around your best friends.” American Indian Student Follows Passion for Animals, Environment Aiden Valverde, an American Indian Studies major from the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, has made significant contributions through his engagement with the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center. As an intern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Valverde was able to connect more with his culture, and his passion for animals and the environment. “Aiden exemplifies everything we strive to achieve in American Indian Studies and at the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center,” said Joely Proudfit, the department chair of American Indian Studies. Computers a Lifelong Passion for Trustees' Award Winner In 2009, Minh Tran’s family moved to Escondido from Vietnam, the only home that he, his parents and his two older siblings had ever known. Now, the fourth-year student who’s on track to graduate in May, was honored as CSUSM’s recipient of the 2024 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, the California State University’s highest recognition of student accomplishment. Students are selected based on academic achievements, financial need, excellence in community service and personal hardship. Awardees have all demonstrated inspirational resolve along the path to college success, and many are the first in their families to attend college. Graduate Crafting Career on Helping Children A child and adolescent development major at Cal State San Marcos, Tania Arceo spent the last year and a half working with Voices for Children, a nonprofit organization where volunteers are trained to become court-appointed special advocates. Volunteers like Arceo represent juvenile dependency cases in San Diego County. Since graduating last spring with her bachelor’s, Arceo has started her Master of Social Work program at CSUSM this fall. Alumnus Seeks Better Mental Health Through Better Cuts John Edwards was only 12 years old when he taught himself how to cut his own hair. By the time Edwards enrolled at Cal State San Marcos as a transfer student returning to higher education in 2021, he was close to completing barber school. Now a licensed barber and a recent CSUSM graduate, he operates a small studio in San Diego, rotating about 25 clients through his single chair. Edwards studied psychology at CSUSM, and it was at the university that he dreamed up the idea of melding his longtime practice of barbering with his fledgling research on mental health treatment. CSUSM Earns Prestigious Seal for Serving Latinx Students Cal State San Marcos has earned the prestigious Seal of Excelencia, a national certification for institutions that strive to go beyond enrollment and more intentionally serve Latinx students. CSUSM is one of only 17 colleges and universities to earn the Seal of Excelencia in 2024. In 2018, Excelencia introduced the seal to certify colleges and universities for their efforts to become learning environments where Latinx, and all, students thrive. This year marks the organization’s 20th year of service to accelerate Latinx student success in higher education. Surfer Makes School History With National Title Tanner Vodraska, a Cal State San Marcos business student, became the first surfer in university history to win an individual national title. The junior competed in the college men’s division of the 2024 National Scholastic Surfing Association interscholastic national championships at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point. Vodraska dominated the field. He posted a two-wave score of 17.5 points in the final, far outdistancing his closest competitor. “I feel really proud of myself because I set a goal to win the national title before I graduate, and I accomplished it,” Vodraska said. Incredible Mulk: Class Project Becomes Thriving Business Melissa Finestone remembers the assignment in her business marketing class that started it all. Each student was required to develop a business plan based on a product they conceived. Finestone decided to curate a product that combined her passion for cooking with a childhood love of chocolate milk. But Finestone wanted to develop a healthy alternative to other chocolate milks on the market. When Finestone couldn’t find a product on the market that met her requirements, she chose to make her own. Using her Vitamix blender to grind almonds in her kitchen at home, Finestone crafted samples of chocolate- and strawberry-flavored, plant-based almond milk. She served it to each student in the class while presenting her product. The overwhelming support from her peers inspired Finestone to launch The Mulk Co. in June 2018, only one year after she graduated from Cal State San Marcos with a bachelor’s degree in global business management. Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314
- Nursing Graduate Knows All About PerformanceWhen Cal State San Marcos holds its annual fall commencement on Sunday, many nontraditional students will cross the stage in their caps and gowns. A nontraditional student, in general parlance, is one who goes or returns to college later in life rather than right after high school. Jonathan Jennings, one of those hundreds of fall 2024 graduates, likes to call himself a “nontraditional nontraditional” student. Not only is he 37 years old and pursuing his second degree, but unlike nearly all of the 50-odd students in his Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program cohort, he does not have an educational background in science. Jennings, rather, graduated from UCLA 15 years ago with a degree in world arts and cultures, which is one of the only academic programs of its type in U.S. higher education. He describes it as a unorthodox fusion of dance and anthropology. “I took everything from ballet to postmodern to African war dances to tai chi – you name it,” Jennings said. “If a culture moves in a certain way, I studied why they move that way, how it affects the way they interact with other people in their culture and how you can respectfully create your own work as an artist without disrespecting the culture.” It's how Jennings applied his first bachelor’s and the path he took toward this second one, however, that elevates his story beyond a mere curiosity. After leaving UCLA, he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a professional dancer. One of his first jobs was as a performer on a Disney cruise ship for nine months, providing on-board entertainment through a medley of shows. Jennings parlayed that opportunity into one that was significantly longer and somehow even more exotic. He worked for much of the next eight years as a dancer at Tokyo Disneyland. Assigned to the wildly popular, Tokyo-specific stage show “One Man’s Dream II: The Magic Lives On,” which featured humans performing alongside Mickey Mouse and many other classic Disney characters, Jennings danced five times a day, five days a week for a total of more than 8,000 shows. “It made for a great icebreaker in the ABSN program,” he said. “Day one of orientation, tell us something interesting about yourself: ‘I used to perform with Mickey and his friends in a show called “One Man’s Dream II.” ’ It’s a unique experience. Not many people have gotten the opportunity to do that.” During his tenure at the theme park, Jennings earned a promotion to line captain, a role that’s responsible for leading rehearsals on days when the director and production team aren’t available, as well as mitigating conflicts between cast members. Away from the job, he enjoyed the minor celebrity status that accompanied being a Disney performer in Japan, while finding time to travel to countries throughout Asia. Asked if he still misses that chapter of his life, Jennings said: “Every day, though I think it’s mostly nostalgia now. I was young. I was making good money. The world was my oyster.” Dancing is often a young person’s profession, and when Jennings reached his early 30s, he realized that he would need to discover his second act. In December 2019, he took part in the final staging ever of “One Man’s Dream,” returned to his hometown of Spring Valley and retired as a dancer. As he began to contemplate what would come next, he thought about things that brought him joy. He thought about his love of babies, shaped by a formative experience helping to care for a newborn cousin who lived with his family when he was just 10 years old. He thought about his exposure to caretaking through poor health suffered by his stepfather and grandfather. He thought, in other words, that nursing – especially pediatric nursing – might be a good fit. So early in the pandemic, he spent a year at Cuyamaca College knocking out the science prerequisites required for him to attend nursing school. Once those were complete, he applied to CSUSM and began studying in its ABSN program in spring 2023. While he battled feelings of imposter syndrome in the classroom from his lack of science training, Jennings sought out any and all chances he could uncover to gain nursing-adjacent seasoning. One such opportunity came through CSUSM’s Mobile Wellness Initiative, which engages students from the seven disciplines of the College of Education, Health and Human Services (including nursing) in community-based health education and promotion events. Starting in February, Jennings volunteered for about seven events in the community, doing things like blood pressure screenings for adults and healthy eating activities for kids. “Recognizing my own ignorance, the fact that I don't have health care experience, I wanted to expose myself to as many scenarios where health care is provided and communities to which is provided as possible,” he said. “It put a very human face on health care for me, in a way that's not in a hospital room where everything's beeping.” Matt Mincey, a nursing lecturer who established the Mobile Wellness Initiative, has witnessed Jennings in action at several community health events and seen how the outsized personality and stage presence that Jennings brought to his dancing career translate to the field of nursing. “One of the things that nursing students struggle with is confidence, especially when it comes to speaking with others,” Mincey said. “Most students find a way to break through that barrier, but it comes at different times for everyone. Jonathan just had this ability from the get-go. He is humble, but he is also confident in what he knows and he is eager to share with anyone who will listen. “I am excited to see where he goes after graduation but already feel the loss in our operations that will be hard to replace.” For his final semester this fall, Jennings worked an externship in the cardiothoracic ICU at Rady Children’s Hospital (one of the top such units in the country) and also did clinical rotations in telehealth at UC San Diego and as a school nurse. He has interviewed for a full-time job at Rady and hopes to have received a job offer by early next year. If he gets the position, he won’t be dressing up in costumes and dancing for patients. But he perceives almost daily the ways in which his previous life benefits him in his new life. “Other than actual textbook content, I don't think there's a corner of nursing that my old career doesn't apply to, which was surprising to me,” he said. “It's being versed in a lot of soft skills that I didn't recognize were skills until I had to apply them in a field where that's not the dominant thing that we're using to create value. If something's going wrong and the doctor has to run out and get a new piece of equipment, I can stand in that room and hold the audience and distract them from pain or whatever they're feeling, as opposed to freezing and standing there awkwardly or leaving the room. I didn't see that as a marketable skill in nursing, but now I do.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306
- Periodic Review Complete for VP of University AdvancementThe periodic review of Jessica Berger, vice president of University Advancement, has been completed. I would like to thank the Periodic Review Committee and everyone who participated in the review for their contributions to the university in providing this valuable service. I congratulate Jessica on her continuing success as VP and look forward to her leadership in meeting the goals we established at the end of the review process.
- Resources and Support for Undocumented and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Students and EmployeesThe Office of Inclusive Excellence invites you to join us for an information session on resources and support for CSUSM's undocumented and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) students and employees. The session is Thursday, Dec. 12 at noon via Zoom (link to be provided upon registration). Learn about the resources and support available to undocumented, TPS and immigrant members of the CSUSM community. This session will provide information on campus and community resources, highlight available services, and discuss ways to foster a supportive and inclusive environment for all. The event is open to students, staff and faculty interested in learning more about these important resources and how to support members of our campus immigrant community. Click here to register. For questions or accommodations, please contact the Office of Inclusive Excellence.
- CSUSM to Continue New Tradition of Fall CommencementCal State San Marcos will remain the only public university in San Diego County to hold a fall commencement when it celebrates its mid-year graduates this month. CSUSM will host its second fall commencement on Sunday, Dec. 15 in the Sports Center on campus. More than 700 students are expected to cross the stage across four ceremonies, and more than 5,500 guests have registered to attend. Since the inaugural occasion last year, fall commencement has grown to the point that CSUSM expanded the number of ceremonies from three to four. There were more than 500 graduates in 2023. CSUSM holds fall commencement to offer students who are graduating in December the opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments with their families without having to wait until spring. Commencement is an especially important milestone for the more than half of graduates at CSUSM who are the very first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree. Each of the four ceremonies will be streamed live on the CSUSM commencement website and mobile app to allow viewing by family members and friends who can’t attend. More information on CSUSM’s commencement ceremonies is available online. What: CSUSM hosts its second annual fall commencement When: Sunday, Dec. 15 9 a.m. – College of Business Administration Noon – College of Education, Health and Human Services; College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics 3 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Session 1) 6 p.m. – College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (Session 2) Where: The Sports Center, Cal State San Marcos, 333 South Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos Media: Members of the media who wish to attend any of the commencement ceremonies are asked to contact Jerry McCormick, director of strategic communications, in advance at JMcCormick@csusm.edu or 619-549-9438. For easy access to the ceremony site, media are asked to park in Lot O or Parking Structure 2.
