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Major · Area, Ethnic & Gender Studies

Study Indigenous history, sovereignty, and lived communities

American Indian/Native American Studies covers the history, politics, cultures, and economics of Native peoples across the Americas, with a focus on US and Canadian populations. The major awards roughly 355 degrees each year across 96 colleges, including both associate and bachelor's programs, with bachelor's completers reporting a five-year median around $52,000.

Schools offering
96
Annual completions
355
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$52k

About this major

American Indian/Native American Studies focuses on the history, politics, cultures, and economic life of Native peoples of the Americas, with heavy emphasis on US and Canadian populations but including Caribbean and Latin American Indigenous peoples where relevant. The curriculum runs from pre-contact history through federal Indian policy, treaty rights, tribal governance, Indigenous languages, literature, and contemporary issues like environmental justice, land-back movements, and Native health. Many programs are embedded in nearby Indigenous communities and require applied work — internships with tribal government, community health projects, language immersion, or ethnographic fieldwork — alongside traditional seminar coursework.

The major tends to fit students who want a credential that is explicitly grounded in Indigenous epistemologies as well as standard academic methods, who are willing to do community-engaged work, and who see themselves heading into roles where tribal affiliation and cultural knowledge are professional assets — tribal government, federal Indian-affairs agencies, Native-serving nonprofits, or K-12 teaching in Native communities. It rewards students who are patient with bureaucratic and legal material — federal Indian law is dense — and who can sit with the tensions between Indigenous and dominant-culture frameworks.

With 355 annual completions across 96 colleges, this is a mid-sized area studies field. The footprint is distinctive: Oglala Lakota College leads with 42 total graduates (24 associate, 18 bachelor's), Windward Community College in Hawaii follows with 38 associates, and the rest of the top ten includes Haskell Indian Nations University, both University of Hawaii campuses, ASU, Dartmouth, Oklahoma, Fort Lewis College, and New Mexico. Associate completers in this field report about $35,455 at five years and bachelor's completers $52,065. The one directly mapped BLS occupation — postsecondary teacher at $84,290 median — requires a doctorate.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Area, ethnic, and cultural studies teachers, postsecondary $84k +2.4% Doctoral or professional degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$52k

Associate's vs Bachelor's — early-career earnings

Associate's

$35k

Bachelor's

$52k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if you have personal or professional reasons to work with Indigenous communities, if you want a degree that combines history, law, language, and applied work rather than just seminar reading, if you're drawn to institutions where the field is institutionally central (Oglala Lakota College, Haskell, UH Manoa, Dartmouth), if you can see yourself working in tribal government, Indian Health Service, a Native nonprofit, or a policy program focused on federal Indian law, and if you're comfortable with the mix of Indigenous and mainstream academic frameworks that the curriculum explicitly holds in tension.

Think twice if you're not planning to work in Native-serving or Indigenous-focused roles and need your major to translate broadly: outside those sectors, employers will mostly read it as a liberal-arts degree and the $52,065 five-year bachelor's median reflects that. Think twice if your program is not one of the handful of institutions with real community ties — at a school with no Indigenous faculty or nearby tribal community, the major can feel thin. And think twice if graduate school is out — the only BLS-mapped academic occupation (postsecondary teacher, $84,290) requires a doctorate, and the 2.4% projected growth for that track is below most professional fields.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for American Indian/Native American Studies

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
Oglala Lakota College Kyle, SD 24 18 42
Windward Community College Kaneohe, HI 38 0 38
Haskell Indian Nations University Lawrence, KS 0 22 22
University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI 0 22 22
University of Hawaii at Hilo Hilo, HI 0 21 21
Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ 0 12 12
Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 0 8 8
University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK 0 7 7
Fort Lewis College Durango, CO 0 7 7
University of New Mexico-Main Campus Albuquerque, NM 0 7 7
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Women's Studies

1,479 completions/yr

Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies, Other

686 completions/yr

African-American/Black Studies

563 completions/yr

Hispanic-American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican-American/Chicano Studies

394 completions/yr

Ethnic Studies

297 completions/yr

Deaf Studies

254 completions/yr

Latin American Studies

130 completions/yr

Disability Studies

85 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

What do Native American Studies majors actually study?
Coursework spans Indigenous history from pre-contact through federal policy eras, tribal governance and sovereignty, land and resource law, Indigenous languages (Lakota, Diné, Hawaiian, others depending on the program), literature, and community health. Many programs emphasize contemporary issues — treaty rights, environmental justice, education policy — and require engagement with nearby tribal communities through internships, applied research, or service learning. The field deliberately includes Indigenous methodologies alongside standard academic methods.
Is an associate's enough, or do I need a bachelor's?
Both tracks exist — the data packet lists associate and bachelor's as tracked degree levels — and the top completer, Oglala Lakota College, produces 24 associate and 18 bachelor's graduates annually. For roles in tribal government, community programs, and certain education and health positions, an associate's can be sufficient. Four-year programs at places like Haskell Indian Nations University, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dartmouth, and Arizona State are the common path for students heading into law, policy, graduate school, or federal agency work. Associate completers in the field report around $35,455; bachelor's completers around $52,065.
Where are the strongest programs located?
The map is distinctive: top completers are concentrated at tribal colleges and universities (Oglala Lakota College with 42 total graduates, Haskell Indian Nations University with 22), Hawaiian institutions (Windward Community College with 38, University of Hawaii at Manoa with 22, UH Hilo with 21), and Western flagships with long-standing programs (Arizona State, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Fort Lewis College). Dartmouth is the main Ivy with substantial enrollment. Geography matters because the major is embedded in regional Indigenous communities.
What kinds of jobs do graduates typically get?
Tribal government and administration, Indian Health Service and other federal Indian-affairs roles, nonprofit and advocacy work, K-12 teaching in reservation and reservation-adjacent districts, museum and cultural resource management, and law school pipelines. The only BLS occupation directly mapped to the CIP — area, ethnic, and cultural studies teacher, postsecondary — requires a doctoral degree and pays $84,290 median, with 2.4% projected growth. Most bachelor's graduates enter government, education, nonprofit, or tribal roles rather than the academic track.
How does this compare to Ethnic Studies or a comparative major?
American Indian/Native American Studies (CIP 05.0202) is specifically focused on Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ethnic Studies (CIP 05.0200) is the comparative framework covering multiple groups side-by-side, and it sees about 297 annual completions across a different network of schools. Pick this major when you want depth in Indigenous governance, language, and community relationships; pick Ethnic Studies if you want comparative analysis across racial and ethnic groups.