Indian students who have withdrawn from public schools for various reasons may receive alternative education at Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Boarding Schools, but they may also face academic, environmental, and personal problems. Attending a boarding school involves a radical culture break. Students are often far from home, deprived of parental guidance, family support, and cultural reinforcement. BIA schools have historically discouraged the use of the students' native tongue. Students are plunged into a strange, faster-paced environment with confining rules and regulations. Often there is little counseling and many students feel no one cares about them. Peer pressure can be intense. The curriculum itself can be a problem in that many students are one to three years behind in academic skills even though they are of average or more intelligence. This contributes to a high dropout rate. As a result students become dependent upon this strange new system, its rewards, and its objectives. They exhibit depression, anxiety, and poor self-concept, and tend to abuse alcohol. Indian students can help alleviate the problems inherent in boarding school life by making and communicating openly with close friends at the school. Schools can help by aiding the transition to boarding school life. (SB)