My Journey Through GRIC’s Higher Education System (pt.4)
A personal story of navigating scholarships, setbacks, and successes in the Gila River Indian Community’s higher education program.
This report is part of a larger series on GRIC higher education - a mix of data analysis and personal reflection. In earlier sections, we’ve looked at where students go, what they study, and how many degrees are completed, using a decade of graduation announcements from the Gila River Indian News. That analysis gave us a community-wide view, but the numbers also pointed me toward something more personal.
Here is a bit of my educational journey through GRIC’s Higher Ed Program.
Getting Started
When I began this series, I thought I was just doing data analysis. I was looking at where our students go, what they study, how many degrees get completed, and how the GRIC Higher Education system holds up.
The more time I spent with the data, the more I started seeing pieces of my own journey in it. I saw breaks between degrees, people taking time off, switching schools, re-entering. I saw stories that looked a lot like mine.
Education has always been important to my family. When I was very young, I remember my mom taking college courses at Mesa Community College. I was too young to remember anything about the classes themselves, except that I would be stuck in daycare for a few hours while she was in class. What I remember most clearly is the clock tower lit up at night when my mom would take us back to her car after class. That memory has stayed with me for years.
I do not think she was using GRIC funds for school at those times in the mid 90s. But she thought it was an important step for getting where she wanted to go. For her, it was about building a life with more choices. Even if she did not have all the support systems in place, she was struggling to get through.
My father worked as a signmaker and was in school as well for his bachelor’s degree. I remember occasional nights with him playing Space Invaders after he got off school, but it was a short time. My parents divorced while I was in kindergarten and he was not part of my life much after that.
After their divorce my mom moved us out to the reservation to live with her family, and that is where I spent most of my childhood. From an early age I knew college was possible. In fact it was expected. I remember always being told that I should be thinking about college. Even before we moved to the reservation my mom drilled into me that education was good for personal growth and success, but also that whatever I learned I should figure out how to bring it back to serve the Community.
The Middle School Leap
Most of my early education was at Sacaton Elementary and Sacaton Middle Schools. I loved reading, I was a general nerd, and I was probably annoying as hell.
I had amazing teachers, but they were dealing with students facing heavy challenges — mental health trauma, extreme poverty, and all of it made harder by a shortage of funding. It was not always the best learning environment.
On top of that were my own struggles. I was dealing with an alcoholic and abusive stepfather, the choice of isolating myself or hanging out with gangs, and the occasional racism.
Even with all of that, I always did well in school. My mom was an amazing human being who did her best to stay engaged with the school system. Sometimes she would go into what she called “Bitchy Bossy Bev” mode when she felt like I was not being served well enough. I also had mentors like Connie Jackson and Brenda Sekaquaptewa, along with others I still consider important in my life.
My early educational journey ended earlier than most. I skipped 8th grade entirely.
By the time I reached that point, my few school friends were gone — caught up in drugs, in juvie, or dropped out of school entirely. I faced the idea of going into 8th grade alone, dealing with more bullies, and an all-around bad environment. It wasn’t just school, I was also going through normal teen boy stuff - trying to fit in, getting caught for light shoplifting, and my mom was generally worried about me.
I’d been excelling in school since we had moved, and my mom asked if I could get bumped up a grade in hopes I’d avoid getting deeper into my teen angst.
Even though I was excelling by Sacaton’s standards, I do not think I was ready for the shift. But it would not be the first strange bump in my education.
Finding My Place in High School
The transition into high school was rough. Since the calendar was different from Sacaton, I started just a little late in the semester, after everyone had already settled in. The curriculum felt completely out of sync with what I was used to. CG Union even had a requirement to take Physics in the first semester. Physics?!
I still remember my English class and the casual expectation to complete a five-paragraph essay. Everyone else seemed to know exactly how to do it. Maybe it was something I missed in 8th grade, or maybe Sacaton just had not prepared me for it, but I felt like a total failure. I had gone from being near the top of the school to completely out of touch and out of place.
The biggest change was the number of non-Native students. I had gone from a 98% Native school system to a far more diverse, mostly milgahn classroom. It was a big adjustment. Eventually I found friends, but that first semester was rocky.
Then there were the bus rides. Anyone living on the reservation knows they can be long. Our neighborhood was one of the first picked up and last dropped off. I often spent over an hour a day each way on the bus. There were no cell phones back then, so I would try to read but mostly just fell asleep.
My grades dropped fast. I went from A’s and B’s at Sacaton to C’s and D’s in high school. Things got better over time as I found friends and some stability. My sister helped guide me for a while, until she left for an alternative school.
The rest of my high school life was not typical either. My mom was going through personal struggles with my stepdad and a miscarriage, which would eventually lead to the beginnings of her cancer diagnosis. It was a rough time.
During my freshman year, I met friends through my sister who in my Sophmore year were moving into an apartment with their older siblings and away from their parents. I convinced my mom it made sense for me to do the same. I told her I would be closer to school, have friends around who cared for me, and be more independent. She agreed.
Looking back, it seems completely wild that my mom let me move out at 15. But she had left home young herself, so maybe she trusted the process. I was lucky to land with amazing friends who supported me. They were straight-edge emo kids, so instead of partying, our fun was playing Donkey Konga and eating Little Caesars for nearly every meal.
My schoolwork improved for a while. I attended more often, got better grades, and felt more stable.
Then came the summer before my senior year, and things started to fall apart again. Many of my friends had graduated or moved away. I moved in with my girlfriend and her family to get through the summer. Things were fine at first. I was working full-time at Wendy’s, closing shifts that kept me up until 2 or 3 a.m., but we both knew she would be leaving soon for college in Oregon.
When school started, we tried doing the long-distance thing, but we broke up within the first couple of weeks. Her parents were kind and offered to let me stay, but it felt awkward, so I found my own place and kept working the same hours to make rent.
All the chaos hit my first semester of senior year hard. My GPA tanked. Looking back, I probably should have moved back in with my mom, but I did not want to be a burden. I liked being independent and did not want to go back to riding the bus for over two hours a day.
School felt empty without my friends. My living situation was tense, I was working late nights, and I started to wonder if it was worth finishing my senior year. My boss at Wendy’s told me that if I kept it up, I could be a manager as soon as I turned 18, just a few months away, and start making “real” money.
So I dropped out a month or so into my senior year.
The GED Gamble
I did not drop out completely right away. I knew my mom would be furious if I just quit school, so I tried enrolling in an alternative night school. It was a go-at-your-own-pace program where you completed endless packets of assignments. After a week, I hated it. It was lonely, I had joined mid-semester, and I was giving up prime chili-making hours at Wendy’s.
I could not quit entirely though. I did not want my mom going into BBB-mode on me. So I came up with a plan. If I got my GED, I could soften the disappointment, and after talking to an advisor at the local community college, I realized it could be my ticket into higher education. With a GED, I could enroll in community college and skip the worst of the lectures from my mom.
So I took my GED and started applying to colleges. I will not go into all the personal details here, but I applied to a school in Oregon and was accepted.
Alright, I can’t totally hide it. I was following my ex-girlfriend. I hadn’t planned it that way, but when she came down for Christmas break, she left an opening for me to think that if we lived closer, things might work out. Writing that out now makes me cringe. I was young and not thinking clearly.
Still, I accepted the offer and moved to Oregon. I quit my job at Wendy’s, and my manager actually cried that I was not staying to work my way up to manager. But I had “true love” to follow, and I thought going to school there was the right move.
This was my entrance into GRIC’s higher education system. I had been mostly disconnected from Gila River since I left Sacaton for high school, but my mom told me to check if the tribe would fund me instead of taking out loans.
That meant going to Student Services and filling out a FAFSA, the federal aid application. I had no idea why it was part of the process, but it was in the packet. Because I was living away from home, I had to coordinate with my mom to get her tax information, then figure out how to submit everything.
It was my first real trip into the world of tribal bureaucracy. Forms got lost, calls and emails had to be made daily, and with enough persistence, you might just come out the other side with what you needed.
Coming Back Home
I give them a hard time, but my advisor in Student Services was actually amazing. I still remember Bonnie DeWeaver and Jim Larney helping me understand the process and making sure my documents were in on time. Looking back now, I realize how busy she must have been, but she still found time to call me with updates.
Once everything was approved, I headed to Oregon for my first year of college.
Moving out of state to follow an ex and attend a small private school was probably a huge mistake. The silver lining was that it got me out of Casa Grande and Sacaton, into a whole new environment. I met great people, lived on campus, and was right in the middle of Portland with public transit and endless new experiences.
Things with my ex did not work out. I realized pretty quickly that I had made a mistake, and I did not stay. I left and moved back home.
The GRIC scholarship program softened the blow. They paid for my first year and I avoided crushing debt. That is one of the strengths of the program — the tribe takes on a lot of risk for first-time college students. While the system assumes students are ready to make big decisions at 17 or 18, the reality is many of us are not. I am grateful my tribe helped me through that first leap.
Once back in Arizona, I took a break from school. I wanted to go back, but life was chaotic again. I got a job, found new roommates, and it took more than a year before I made my way back into college.
This second round of applying for funding was harder. Because I had taken a break, I had to complete the entire application process again. I still needed my mom’s tax information, had to redo the FAFSA, and deal with the headache of transferring out-of-state credits. Not every credit from my Oregon school would transfer to Arizona.
It took research and several meetings with Mesa Community College staff (the same school my mom attended) to figure out how my credits could apply. Eventually, I got everything in and started my community college journey.
I spent a couple of years at MCC working toward my associate degree. The only real hiccup came when I got a D in a math class. I made the credit up over the summer, paying out of pocket, but I did not submit my transcript in time. That put me in “bad status” with TED without them notifying me.
Their policy was clear: bad grades meant I had to make up the credit before they would fund me again. But even after calls and emails, I did not get a firm answer until I was already a month into the semester. By then it was too late to drop classes without affecting my transcript. I ended up paying for that semester out of pocket, with help from friends, family, and a little credit card debt.
Once that speed bump was behind me, I was fine until I graduated. I stayed at MCC for about two years, finishing my associate degree and preparing to transfer to ASU. At the time, I was set on studying sociology and becoming a marriage and family counselor.
Before transferring, I had to reapply to TED yet again. This time it was because I took a semester off after earning my AA. I had started a new job, my apartment lease ended, and I was moving around the valley. Stability was still hard to come by.
I started the reapplication process late in the year, scrambling to gather transcripts and documents. I drove them to Sacaton to avoid the risk of emailed files being “lost.” It was the middle of summer, my car’s air conditioning was out, and I spent a few days soaking the driver’s seat in sweat while racing between offices to gather documents like my CDIB, birth certificate, and other important documents.
Degree in Hand
Attending ASU was great. Since I already had my associate degree, I only needed to take upper-level classes to graduate. I chose sociology over psychology because the course path looked more interesting.
I took classes on organizational structure, city planning, statistics, and other subjects that ended up having a big impact on my career, even if they did not seem directly connected to my goals at the time.
Most of my classes were online. By then, I was working at a manufacturing job and had recently gotten married. Between my work schedule and family life, I had little time to drive to campus. During my senior year, we welcomed our first child. Baby plus school was a brutal combination, and I was running on very little sleep.
I graduated in December, which meant I did not walk across the stage. Still, I had my diploma and was excited to start a career in my field. I loved my manufacturing job, but my mom kept reminding me, “When you are finished, you need to go back and give back to the Community.”
With that in mind, I applied for multiple entry-level jobs in the Community. I was rejected each time, either for not matching specific skills or for lacking experience in the exact area the department needed. After a few months of trying and failing, I followed my mom’s advice and went to the Employment and Training Department. She had gone through the department when she first moved back to the Community, and it had led to her 15-year career.
Getting enrolled in Employment and Training was its own process. There were in-person requirements, wet signatures, and plenty of trips to the office. I was in a strange spot — I was employed and making good money, but I wanted to leave that job for one with the Community.
Eventually, Director Lana Chanda met with me personally. We talked about my goal to go to graduate school and become a counselor or psychologist. She offered me a position in the summer youth program so I could gain experience counseling young people preparing to enter the program.
It was a big pay cut, but it was closer to home, and I convinced my wife it would be a stepping stone. It also made my mom happy.
That experience turned out to be invaluable.
A Different Direction
I loved working with my clients. I enjoyed the problem solving involved in finding them places to work and matching their skills. But I also realized that I really hated the counseling part. I am glad I figured that out before committing to graduate school for counseling.
What I discovered was that I liked helping people, but I enjoyed research, writing, and data much more than direct one-on-one counseling.
I stayed at Employment and Training for a while, eventually moving into a grant position to build an AmeriCorps program that served veterans. I loved that role. I got to build the grant and program from the ground up, identify gaps in Community services, and meet some amazing people along the way.
After a few years, I moved to the Office of the Community Manager as a program evaluator, working on an even wider range of projects involving planning and program development.
At that job, I got the itch to go back to school. With encouragement from my boss and mentor, Pamela Thompson, I decided the timing was right. I wanted to stay at Arizona State University, and I was interested in technology.
In my research, I found a new program called the Master of Science and Technology Policy. I did not know much about the degree itself, but the professors’ projects looked fascinating. I applied and was accepted with only a few issues through TED.
Of course, that meant another round of submitting documents. I had to gather transcripts and records from all the schools I had attended, even though I had submitted them before. I told myself this would be the last time. At least my car had air conditioning now, and my office was right down the street from Tribal Education, which made the process easier.
I completed graduate school while keeping my full-time job. It was exhausting and stressful, but also one of the most rewarding periods of my life.
Conclusion
You may ask what is the point of writing all this. When I started this analysis, I saw how closely the data reflected my own story. My journey to higher education was not straightforward. I took breaks during my degrees and I took breaks between my degrees. Like many other Community members, I did not have a perfect life or an easy path to getting into school and staying there.
Even with the incredible opportunity that our scholarship provides, there were challenges. It helped me get into school, but it was not a perfect solution. My own frustrations with TED are the same I have heard from others for years. The communication and financial aid process can make getting into school feel like a chore. I was fortunate that for most of my academic career I had my mom encouraging me, pushing me to get my documents in on time, advocating for me, and even teasing me when I was slow to get back into school. After she passed, I was lucky to have a boss and mentor who took over that role and kept me going.
Despite the challenges, I have to acknowledge how life-changing it is to come out of college without debt. I have never totaled the full cost of my education or calculated exactly what the Community covered after grants, scholarships, and other aid, but I do know that in graduate school I had classmates carrying $50,000, $60,000, even $100,000 in debt. They will be paying it off for decades.
I was able to complete my graduate education with a few thousand in loans that I was able to pay back pretty quickly.
So despite the winding road, the paperwork marathons, and the summer drives to drop off documents, I give my full appreciation to the Community for their support.
Beyond the funding, Employment and Training played a major role in shaping my career. The scholarship helped me get the degrees, but the real-world experience was just as important. Without that, I might have gone straight into counseling and ended up hating my work.
For students, my advice is to treat higher education like a shared responsibility between you and the programs that support you. Get your paperwork in on time. Learn the policies and understand what is required to stay in good standing. Work with a counselor to map out your path before you start so you know how each step fits into your long-term goals. Build relationships with mentors who can guide you, advocate for you, and keep you accountable. I was lucky to have my mom, later a boss and mentor, who filled that role. You will need people like that in your corner, especially when the process feels overwhelming.
At the same time, remember that the degree is only part of the picture. Employment and Training can be just as valuable as Student Services. Take advantage of career exploration opportunities - internships, job shadowing, volunteering - anything that lets you see the work up close. The sooner you test your interest in a career, the sooner you can make changes if it is not the right fit. That saves you time, money, and frustration, and it helps make sure tribal funds are supporting paths that lead to real success.
Finally, understand that your journey may not be perfect or straightforward. Breaks will happen. Plans will change. What matters most is staying connected to your goals, using the resources available to you, and keeping your focus on building a future that is both fulfilling for you and valuable to the Community.
Policy Guidance
Based on the story above I put together a few policy thoughts to consider for our tribal leadership when they are thinking about ways my story might spark some ideas for change in our current system.
Recommendations for Tribal Leadership
Help with transitions between schools
Switching from Sacaton to CG Union was a shock. The new curriculum, new environment, and different social setting hit me all at once. Look at ways to prepare students for these jumps so they do not start high school already feeling behind. The JOM or K-12 programs might help with this, they were not around when I was in school – but maybe do some evaluation to make sure they are actually helping with that transition.Connect school to careers
Make sure Student Services and Employment and Training partner closely so students can try out jobs in their field before they graduate. Internships, job shadowing, or short work programs would help students make sure they are heading into a career they actually want.Build a mentor network
Not every student has someone like my mom or my boss to push them and advocate for them. Create a mentor program that pairs students with Community members in the fields they are studying. Those relationships can keep people motivated and on track.Fix communication and paperwork issues
Lost documents and slow responses can cost a student a whole semester. Invest in a better way to submit and track paperwork, and set clear timelines for getting back to students.Make it easier to come back after a break
Many students will take time off for work, family, or other reasons. Instead of starting over from scratch, make the return process simpler so people can get back into school quickly and keep moving toward their goals.