Investigation Reveals Land-Grant Universities' Profits from Indigenous Lands

A new report uncovers how universities benefit from lands taken from Indigenous nations, generating billions in revenue through extractive industries.

• Fourteen land-grant universities generate revenue from 8.2 million surface and subsurface acres of Indigenous land, taken from at least 123 Indigenous nations through more than 150 land cessions.
• Indigenous nations were paid approximately $4.3 million in 2023 dollars for these lands, but in many cases, they received no compensation at all.
• Nearly 25 percent of land-grant university trust lands are designated for either fossil fuel production or the mining of minerals like coal and iron-rich taconite.
• In 2022, state trust lands generated more than $2.2 billion in revenue, contributing to a total of approximately $6.6 billion between 2018 and 2022.
• Grist's investigation reveals the ongoing financial benefits land-grant universities derive from colonization and the relationship between colonialism, higher education, and climate change.

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