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Editorial: Sports scholarships, foreign students

Proposed bills send wrong message about Minnesota.

Last update: March 27, 2009 - 5:55 PM

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GLOBAL COMPETITION

"We're well beyond the time we can isolate ourselves from having to work and play with and compete with people from other countries of the world... I think it's very shortsighted if we lose that perspective. The impact especially in the team sports is an invaluable learning experience."

Kay Thomas, director, International Student and Scholar Services, University of Minnesota

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Reeling from the recession, Minnesota will need its most important natural asset -- brainpower. So the state should make sure that during these tough times it doesn't make decisions that erode what sets it apart.

Recent bills about state funding for student athletes that have been introduced by Rep. Bob Dettmer and Sen. Ray Vandeveer, both Forest Lake Republicans, are a case in point.

The House version would bar any state funding to be "used directly or indirectly for an athletic scholarship for a student who is not a citizen of the United States." The Senate version -- which was amended and "laid over" after a hearing last week -- would go a step further, limiting state funding to just Minnesotans and student athletes from reciprocity states. So no South Koreans, but South Dakotans, North Dakotans and Wisconsin residents would be eligible along with Minnesotans for a taxpayer-funded sports scholarship.

For academic and athletic reasons, both are bad bills. But even more important, the message behind them is that Minnesota is increasingly inward-looking. This at a time when it should be presenting itself as a state that expects and accepts diversity and is ready to work with and compete against global competition, whether in the boardroom or up against the boards on a hockey rink.

The proposed law would make Minnesota the only state in the nation with such limits. That might make the state seem parochial at best and xenophobic at worst, just when the state needs to attract foreign investment and trade.

Academically, the law would undercut the concept of college as a broadening experience. Foreign students provide one way for young Minnesotans to experience diversity and expand their understanding of the world, essential for competing in the global economy.

Data from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU), whose schools would bear the brunt of the bill (since private colleges aren't affected and the University of Minnesota Gophers pay for student-athletic scholarships out of a separate fund), suggest that 1,694 MnSCU students received $5.6 million in athletic scholarship aid, with the average recipient getting $3,335. The vast majority come from this region, with 55 percent from Minnesota and 28 percent from reciprocity states. Only 65 international students received aid, for a total of $459,000 or $7,059 per student.

Compare that with an economic impact of $197 million from foreign students and their families coming to Minnesota, as estimated by the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers. Any chilling effect on Minnesota's perceived welcome of foreign students might jeopardize some of the intellectual and economic impact of those students.

About half of foreign students receiving scholarship money play hockey. Minnesota may be "the state of hockey," but it's a world game now.

Any perception that Minnesota State University, Mankato, St. Cloud State University or the University of Minnesota Duluth were less receptive to Canadian or European players would put them at "an obvious disadvantage," said Western Collegiate Hockey Association Commissioner Bruce McLeod (himself a Canadian who received a hockey scholarship to UMD and stayed and paid taxes for over 40 years).

In business, academics and, yes, athletics, Minnesota competes on a global basis. If legislators like Dettmer and Vandeveer forget about that reality, it's up to their colleagues in the Legislature to remind them.

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