Say Anything Blog

Despite Governor John Hoeven increasing higher educations pending by a whopping 39% in his just-released budget that increases overall state spending by 26%, the North Dakota Board of Higher Education is promising more tuition increases for college students.

Although Gov. John Hoeven’s proposed budget advocates a 39 percent spending rise for North Dakota’s university system, higher education officials say it still could result in larger student tuition bills. . . .

Hoeven’s proposal allocated nothing to the board’s “affordability” request, although it did exceed the university system’s preferred budget in some areas. The governor, for example, is seeking $40 million in financial aid for low-income students over two years; the Board of Higher Education requested $20 million. . . .

Laura Glatt, the system’s vice chancellor for administrative affairs, said if the $12.6 million request was not met, some campuses would have to make up the difference by raising tuition as much as 6 percent annually.

Just so we’ve got this straight, North Dakota taxpayers are on the hook (unless legislators change it) for a 40% increase in higher education spending despite already being ranked #2 in the country in per-capita higher education spending and we’re still going to see 6% tuition increases?  Just because the government didn’t raise spending on some budget line item?

Isn’t our university system capable of taking some of the excess funds the Governor is allocating in other areas of the higher education budget and use that money to keep tuition down?  Apparently that would make too much sense.

For what it’s worth, I think this is a ploy by the higher education bureaucrats to weasel more money out of the state coffers.  Remember that we’re going into this legislative session with a massive budget surplus and every bureaucrat in the state government is looking for every penny to be spent.  Clearly higher education wants more than its fair share, and is willing to resort to threats about higher tuition to get its way.

Frankly, I don’t think higher education should be subsidized at all in North Dakota.  Nor do I think the state should own or run any universities.  But since state colleges are mandated in the Constitution, and since taxpayers are on the hook for funding them until that changes, we should be asking ourselves why we’re paying more, relatively, than just about every other state in the nation for higher education and its still costing us a pound of flesh to send our kids to college?