Minnesota as 'Brainpower State': Exit interview with an expert

While Republicans were still howling about his veto of the tax bill, Gov. Mark Dayton hit the road last week to talk to Minnesotans about an item of arguably greater importance on the Legislature's unfinished business agenda — higher education.

In Rochester, North Mankato, Moorhead, Worthington, Duluth and St. Cloud, Dayton chastised the Legislature for a stingy response to higher-ed funding pleas and for failing to pass a bonding bill that included funding for facilities at both Minnesota higher-ed systems.

Back in St. Paul, Dayton called for bonding for a new $66 million health sciences building at the University of Minnesota, calling it "absolutely critical" and "one of the cornerstones of our future economic success." That pricey project was at the top of the DFL governor's bonding wish list but was omitted from the bonding bills House Republicans designed.

Dayton's words had to be sweet swan-song music to the ears of a University of Minnesota stalwart who is logging the final weeks of a 40-year career in public service. Richard Pfutzenreuter — "Fitz" to the Capitol crowd — will retire at the end of the month as vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of Minnesota's higher-educational flagship.

Pfutzenreuter, 64, has been the university's money guy and so much more. He's one of the behind-the-scenes public servants who toils so that other people can take government services for granted. He's a son of a St. Paul bricklayer, a former competitive swimmer, a Hamline University philosophy major, an old legislative hand (he helped build today's highly respected House fiscal-analysis shop) and a sage adviser to lawmakers, academicians and the occasional wayward journalist seeking to be set straight.

Pfutzenreuter has also been a back-seat member of the university's lobbying team. He's watched as the university's share of the state budget fell from roughly 9 percent three decades ago to barely 3 percent today. He's worried as the university's share of bonding bills slipped from a high of 18 percent to 8 percent in the bill now in legislative limbo.

That has happened even as knowledge has become the foundation of the global economy, as research-driven industries have become Minnesota's superstars, as a well-educated workforce has become the state's top economic asset and as a postsecondary education has become a necessity for individual self-sufficiency.

"Legislators have always known that the tuition valve was there — no matter what they say about how awful it is that tuition has gone up," Pfutzenreuter said. When state money was tight, state pols knew they could squeeze allocations to higher education without doing grave damage, as long as those institutions were free to raise tuition.

But when tuition climbed, legislators objected. Of late, the big complaint has been that nonresident tuition is too low and that if it were higher, resident tuition could be reduced. (Or not: Raise nonresident tuition too much, and those students will go elsewhere, hurting the U's bottom line. President Eric Kaler was prudent last week to throttle back his proposal for a 15 percent hike to nonresident tuition next year to 7.5 percent, an increase approved Friday by the Board of Regents.)

The university's moves to enhance its academic standing also took an unexpected toll. Almost 20 years ago, then-new university President Mark Yudof vowed to improve academic quality at the U, whether or not state taxpayers funded the effort. Fitz's fingerprints are all over one tactic. In 1998, he helped create a financial incentive for the U's colleges to offer more classes. A chronic problem — students unable to enroll in the classes they needed when they needed them — was much relieved. Graduation rates quickly improved.

A better undergraduate experience led to more applicants, which led to more selective admissions, which led to a new problem at the Legislature: The University of Minnesota stood accused of elitism.

"When I started at the university in 1992, the biggest complaint I heard at the Capitol was that kids couldn't get their classes to graduate on time," Pfutzenreuter said. "Now the complaint is 'My kid can't get in!' "

But Pfutzenreuter also sees a longer trend line, moving in what he deems the wrong direction.

"I don't think it's just the university that's struggling. There's just not the sense of sharing in this state that there was 40 years ago. When I worked at the Legislature for 10 years, from 1982 to 1992, I know there was a greater sense than there is today that Minnesotans need to share their wealth for the sake of the common good.

"I think that idea is threatened now. It's been threatened by all kinds of things."

Among the things he cited: Minnesota now has too many safe DFL or GOP legislative districts, "where they don't have to compromise with each other." Too few Minnesotans understand state government's role in their prosperity: "It was government that made this place, with education as the pivotal element. It's what made Minnesota work. People don't know that."

And a sense of a common goal for this state is lacking, he said. "We don't dream enough dreams together. We need more shared dreams."

He was talking about "The Brainpower State." Thirty years after Gov. Rudy Perpich first said it, it's still Minnesota's best shared dream.

Lori Sturdevant, an editorial writer and columnist, is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.