Minnesota's future: An SOS from a rural university

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. (To contribute, click here.) This commentary is included among a collection of articles that were submitted in response to, or are otherwise applicable to, Star Tribune Opinion's June 4 call for submissions on the question: "Where does Minnesota go from here?" Read the full collection of responses here.

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I've been teaching college students in rural Minnesota for a decade. I've never seen an opportunity like we have now. And I've never seen a risk like we have now.

I am writing to ask for awareness and support for Minnesota's rural public universities and colleges. Here at Bemidji State University, it is believed that our administration intends to start the layoff of as many as 30 faculty. That's enough to devastate programs that the community needs and set us back for years. That is, unless we act now to protect higher education in rural Minnesota.

Educators like me look for opportunities like we have here at Bemidji State. Our students are typically the first generation in their family to seek higher education. Two-thirds of them work to afford college. There is a widening achievement gap between my students and urban and suburban students, like the ones in St. Paul and St. Cloud. People in rural areas are less likely to have a college degree — and they need higher education just as much. I'm writing from a county with one of Minnesota's highest rates of food insecurity and poverty. Indigenous students are some of the least served in the country, yet 7% of our students are American Indian.

A university education is a great opportunity for students. They will go on to be the teachers, nurses, peace officers and programmers that our communities need. I've seen firsthand that a degree and a college experience can make all the difference to a student who is driven to serve the community. And I'm proud that so many of Bemidji State's students stay in greater Minnesota after graduating.

Minnesota has made an extraordinary promise to our students. The North Star Promise Scholarship Program guarantees that any student from a family making less than $80,000 can attend a public university without paying tuition. Minnesota is promising to pay for what federal grants and scholarships can't cover. In rural counties, the gap between the median income and the cost of a college education is getting larger and larger. The North Star Promise, along with Minnesota's recent investment in higher education, is a chance to turn back time and put a university education within reach for lower-income families across rural Minnesota.

The North Star Promise makes well-deserved headlines. But it comes after years of starvation. For 40 years, the state funded less and less of what its universities needed. Many Minnesotans don't realize that, per student, our public university students get less from state sources than do students in North Dakota and Wisconsin.

When money got tight, the Legislature told us to pass the cost on to students. Tuition went up, but we — faculty and staff — often absorbed the costs of higher education. Unpaid bills by the state turned into late nights for us and deficits for the school.

For a small rural college, each person is a large piece of an academic program. I am afraid of what these faculty and programmatic cuts might mean. We are losing a piece of our computer science program — in a community that badly needs tech jobs. We are losing experts in special education — when the state has been all but ordered by federal agencies to improve special education. We are losing a professional writing expert — when the most in-demand skill for our graduates is professional communication.

Bemidji State's administration is planning to cut more faculty and academic programs. I don't know how much more, yet. But our conversations are increasingly about keeping programs open.

The question isn't, "Whose fault is it?" Our students don't have time for finger-pointing.