June 25, 2007
Agreement reached in tuition reciprocity
Beginning in 2008, Wisconsin will pay the difference in tuition to individual Minnesota schools, instead of the state's general fund.
June 22, 2007
StarTribune
Jeff Shelman
An ugly battle in the tuition reciprocity agreement between Minnesota and Wisconsin was averted, essentially because of what amounts to a change in plumbing.
With the University of Minnesota threatening to pull out of the agreement as soon as next week, the governors of the two states announced a compromise on Friday.
The reciprocity program allows college students to cross state lines without having to pay more expensive nonresident tuition rates.
For students and parents, there will be essentially no difference between the current reciprocity setup and the one that will go into effect in the fall of 2008. Wisconsin students will continue to pay less out of pocket to attend Minnesota universities than in-state students.
The difference, however, is in how that happens.
Presently, Wisconsinites are charged a tuition rate similar to what they would pay if they stayed at home for college, a total that is as much as $2,200 a year less than Minnesota in-state tuition.
At the end of each year, the State of Wisconsin sends money to the State of Minnesota to cover those differences.
But beginning in the fall of 2008, Wisconsin students crossing the border will be charged the same amount in tuition as their Minnesota classmates.
Wisconsin residents, however, will receive a "tuition reciprocity supplement," a subsidy that lowers their actual out-of-pocket charges.
At the end of each semester, both the University of Minnesota system and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system will bill the State of Wisconsin for those supplements.
The change will be phased in over four years and will apply only to new students. Current students and students beginning classes this fall will not be affected.
Full Story
June 18, 2007
Editorial: Higher ed needs more good years
Minnesota has allowed its commitment to waver.
June 17, 2007
StarTribune
Editorial
Amid all the shrugs and curses in response to a lackluster 2007 legislative session, two public enterprises went home happy. The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities had their best legislative session this decade, winning increases in state funds of 17 and 13 percent, respectively, over the coming two years.
To that result, we must say, "Keep it coming" -- and not just to the state's two public collegiate systems, but also to the student financial-aid system, which did not have such a good year. For a state whose governor boasted 20 years ago that its claim to fame would be its brainpower, Minnesota has been too stingy with tax support for higher education for a long time. It'll take more than one good session to put legitimacy back into the Brainpower State slogan.
"Minnesota Coasting" was the title of a report that documented that trend, presented last month in Brainerd to a meeting of the Minnesota Association of Financial Aid Administrators. Its author was Tom Mortenson, an Iowa-based national analyst of higher education policy, and a Minnesota native son.
"I gave them a tongue-lashing," Mortenson said of his report. "Minnesota's long-standing leadership in higher education has and is falling apart."
The evidence he cited is compelling, and worthy of concern:
Tightfistedness
Admittedly, the hard knock of the post 9/11 recession and the political appeal of antitax messages have combined to make this a rough decade for public higher education in all states, not just Minnesota.
But only four states -- Colorado (where voters put a constitutional clamp on government growth in the 1990s), South Carolina, Iowa and Mississippi -- made a bigger retreat from 2000 to 2007, in percentage terms, than Minnesota did in the share of personal income it devotes to tax support of higher education. Those states are not ones Minnesotans often aspire to emulate.
It's no secret to Minnesota students and their families that the rising tuition has been the result of the state's tightfistedness toward its colleges and universities. What Minnesotans may not realize is how far above the national average this state's public higher education costs have risen.
June 07, 2007
Editorial: U of M tuition ideas make sense
Wisconsin students at U should pay Minnesota resident rates.
June 7, 2007
StarTribune
Editorial
When a legislative session ends, thoughts at the University of Minnesota turn quickly to tuition. It was a good session for the university, and the pricing ideas emanating from Morrill Hall this week are mostly good too, to wit:
• Wisconsin Discount Days should come to an end at the University of Minnesota. The arrangement officially called "reciprocity" tilts too far in the Badger State's direction. President Robert Bruininks is right: If the two states' higher education negotiators can't come up with a new agreement that's fairer to Minnesota, the Board of Regents should unilaterally charge Wisconsin students Minnesota resident rates, beginning with the 2008 freshman class.
It's not fair to taxpaying Minnesotans, or to the state's neighbors to the north and west, that they pay higher tuition when they enroll at the University of Minnesota than Wisconsinites do. Wisconsin students at the Twin Cities campus pay what they would have paid if they had enrolled on the Big 10 campus in Madison. No other reciprocity arrangement with a state or province carries similar terms.
June 04, 2007
Lori Sturdevant: A moment left unseized
June 4, 2007
StarTribune
Lori Sturdevant
Minnesota is used to seeing governors get pretty agitated about a chance to snare a new industry for this state, or keep a good one tethered here.
My late book-writing partner Elmer L. Andersen probably got all of about two votes from the Iron Range, he being a Republican. But he still spent nearly four years promoting a constitutional guarantee of fair taxation to anchor the taconite industry here.
Twenty years later, DFLer Rudy Perpich circled the globe, hunting for jobs in industries ranging from chopsticks manufacturing to supercomputing. Then came Republican Arne Carlson, who knocked himself out to keep Northwest Airlines afloat.
Even Jesse Ventura used an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show" to pitch for a new employer for laid-off taconite workers in Hoyt Lakes.
So as the clock wound down on the 2007 session, I figured that Gov. Tim Pawlenty would soon start talking up the University of Minnesota's request for fast-track bonding authority for four new bioscience research buildings. Or that legislators would start buzzing about calls from the governor's office, urging a kind look at the university's plan for hiring scores of new faculty.
The university's request was, after all, the only viable, affordable, remotely plausible plan in sight for keeping up with the competition, and snagging a share of the industry that's exploding in research hotspots around the country.
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May 23, 2007
Legislature passes higher education bill
If signed by governor, U would receive additional $149 million
May 22, 2007
Rick Moore
On the final day of the 2007 session Monday, the Minnesota State Legislature passed a higher education spending bill that would provide an increase in funding of about $149 million for the University of Minnesota for the 2008-09 biennium.
The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both bodies--by a vote of 65-0 in the Senate and 127-7 in the House. It's now up to Gov. Tim Pawlenty to either sign the bill or veto all or parts of it.
"For the last several years, the University has been focused on reforms to improve the quality of education and the impact of our research and public responsibilities on Minnesota's economy and quality of life," President Bob Bruininks said in a statement Monday afternoon. "The funding bill passed today will ensure we can continue on that path to become one of the best public research universities in the world."
The University had requested $182.3 million in new state funding for the biennium. The increase approved Monday by the legislature represents about 82 percent of the U's request. The additional state support will be used to enhance the University's core mission and competitive position, and invest in measures that help "create Minnesota's future."
