By Jeanne Poppe

State Representative

If Minnesota is going to move forward sooner rather than later it must make the right strategic decisions this legislative session. Slashing spending in the billions of dollars may take care of a short term deficit but does far worse damage in the long term. We have been living in the “kick the can down the road” reality of the past several years and it is time we look at a different plan of action. But switching over to a radically different philosophy for budget management with little consideration of what that does to our long term investments seems like no improvement. We must be smarter and more strategic than that. The choices we make now will either hobble us or catapult us five, 10 and 25 years from now. Minnesotans deserve and certainly should expect legislators’ best efforts in making the right choices.

At a time when possible solutions should be considered for economic growth and job creation the House Higher Education bill seems to do all it can to kill jobs and halt economic growth. Each system will be cut 15 – 20 percent.

From 2001 to 2011, tuition has increased 70 percent at colleges and 90 percent at universities. Student debt is increasing at unsustainable levels. High school graduates from middle income families are making decisions to curtail their higher education due to the high cost. For these students, deferring their college entry or instead entering the workforce seems their only option because college has become unaffordable and therefore not possible. I often refer to this group of students as the “lost generation.”

One of the students who testified against the House Higher Education bill made the point that those of my generation had opportunities to get an affordable education which led us to make substantially different career choices than students of his age will be able to make. Our parents and grandparents in Minnesota and across the nation made decisions supporting higher education and made it affordable for the baby boomers. Shouldn’t the class of 2016 have at least the same options as the class of 1966?

One bright spot in the House Higher Ed bill is an increase in the state grant program. However, the funds to pay for the grant program come from the public college and university system. MnSCU Chancellor Jim McCormick testified that although tuition caps and state grant funding help students, cutting money to the institutions will harm the delivery of the services those students pay for. This means students have fewer academic departments from which to take classes, decreased course sections offered each semester, and an inability of the universities to attract top talent for teaching and research. This certainly is a statewide issue but it directly hits us locally. After years of reducing spending, laying off administrators, staff and faculty, the loss in revenue from the state means Riverland Community College will need to look at closing revenue producing programs. It just doesn’t make good fiscal or business sense to shut off even more of your revenue.

This is not the way our state should be moving. Minnesota’s universities and colleges are the economic engines of the state. These cuts are putting sugar in their gas tank.

Supporting higher education means funding it adequately, but reforms and efficiencies must also be part of the discussion and I am working toward those ends. The University of Minnesota and MnSCU must act on reform and/or realignment to make some dramatic adjustments or the legislature will intervene and do it for them. I have offered some possibilities for change and that has met with some resistance from MnSCU. Maybe MnSCU doesn’t see my proposals as the right ideas. Just protecting their turf and defending the status quo is not the answer. They can’t afford the status quo as the current model is unsustainable.

Please continue to let me know what you consider to be the priorities of the state and the solutions you recommend at the state legislature. If you would like to be on my email update list, please send your email to rep.jeanne.poppe@house.mn.

Jeanne Poppe, DFL, represents the Austin area in the Minnesota Legislature.