so we have sf2603 Appropriations bill for Minnesota state colleges and universities Senator kupec please introduce yourself for the record and begin with your testimony sure thank you chair for today I am bringing Senate file 2603 for the Minnesota state colleges and universities uh first it is a Minnesota state stabilization which is in subdivision 140 million dollars in fiscal year 2024 85 in fiscal year 2025. those will be to maintain academic programs and keep tuition affordable students Sup
port also has in subdivision two 50 million dollars and fiscal year 2024 75 million dollars in fiscal year uh 2825 to meet directly support students critical needs of the amounts appropriated there in the subdivision so you can go through there's a breakdown of that and I have with me uh from Minnesota state to present uh the rest of the bill Vice Chancellor please introduce yourself for the record and proceed thank you chair fate members of the committee for the record I am Bill Mackey Vice Cha
ncellor for finance and Facilities among many colleagues in the room from our student associations and our bargaining units is our Board of Trustees chair Roger Moe our Minnesota State's proposed FY 2425 legislative operating budget requests focuses on protecting Minnesota State's commitment to inclusive excellence in ensuring all minnesotans receive an extraordinary affordable accessible education and provide our businesses the workforce they need as mentioned the focus of today's presentation
will be on the 125 million for Minnesota state stabilization funding and 125 million dollar request over the biennium for student support Investments we will be back on Thursday to focus on the workforce and economic development portion of our total 350 million dollar biennial request before I I began the presentation I like to just provide a brief overline of of the our agenda for today I'll address the stabilization and the tuition freeze and the student cost of attendance component of the stu
dent support portion of our biennial budget request Paul Shepard and interim associate Vice Chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management will address the expanding student support services and emergency grants components while Jesse Mason interim associate Vice Chancellor for academic Affairs will provide information on the transfer scholarship component then Minnesota State University Moorhead vice president for finance and administration Gene holler Alex kurminga musaf State presid
ent and msum director of diversity and inclusion Jared pigeon will provide perspectives on the importance and impact from a campus perspective of the stabilization and student support funding would have for their students the Minnesota state stabilization portion of the request includes 125 million 40 million in fiscal year 24 and 85 million in fiscal year 25 to to address our most immediate needs the request will increase our state appropriation by roughly 5 each year to address deflationary ne
eds this includes an increase of over six percent each year allocated directly to our colleges and universities as well as an increase of approximately three percent each year for system-wide technology and system office operations our colleges and universities rely on state appropriation to cover a significant portion of their General operating budget an ongoing base increase in state appropriation is needed for Minnesota state colleges and universities to continue to provide an exceptional edu
cation and ensure there are adequate programs and services to serve our students without increases in general fund revenues campuses will need to further reduce the breadth of academic programs and student services that are available well demands in many of these areas have increased Minnesota state stabilization funding was recognized as a fundamental need area during the 12 fall listening sessions held across the state sponsored by the chair of the board and other trustees and the chancellor s
o they could hear directly from internal and external stakeholders as this request was being put together listening session participants supported strongly direct campus support to address local cost pressures the statement was made frequently that campuses can no longer do more with less funding for a tuition freeze was also high on participants mined as was faculty funding for faculty and staff compensation that has not been keeping up with the market and inflation participants also talked abo
ut faculty or talked about asset preservation to take care of building upkeep as well as increased funding that could go towards technology to help students with additional mobile devices and digital literacy efforts in addition another concern identified was the need for State funding to support Mission critical positions that were added during the pandemic with Federal higher education emergency relief dollars I will now move to the student support component of our request where we focus on ac
cess Student Success and Equitable educational outcomes many of our students have challenges outside the classroom that can be barriers to completion even if they are progressing academically we need to ensure that all minnesotans accomplish their educational goals no matter their background or socioeconomic status the first priority area of this component is a request for tuition freeze and cost of attendance reductions totaling 77 million dollars 75 million will allow colleges and universities
to freeze tuition rates where they currently are for the next two academic years freezing tuition costs provides an across-the-board cost reduction to students by replacing the revenue that would have come from normal tuition rate changes with State appropriation dollars the amount brought forward is calculated based on the tuition limits in the 2223 biennial appropriation law of three point of increases of 3.5 percent for undergraduate students also included in this proposal proposal is two mi
llion dollars in funding to reduce students total cost of attendance by seeking out and continuing to expand free offerings for a wide range of course materials and resources additional open educational resources or oers would be provided and developed in high demand fields of studies transfer Pathways and gaps in the existing Marketplace extending these to Z degrees and degrees that have are degrees that have zero costs for textbooks would be expanded Mr chair with your permission that conclude
s my portion of the testimony and I would like to turn the presentation over to associate Vice Chancellor Paul Shepard to talk about the expansion of student services and student emergency Grant components of our request thank you for your testimony uh Mr Shepard please introduce yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony and members of the committee for the record my name is Paul Shepard and I serve as the interim associate Vice Chancellor for student affairs and enrollment managem
ent at Minnesota state I am honored to have the opportunity to provide additional information about the expanded student support and emergency Grant sections of the bill over the last six to seven years Minnesota state has engaged in extensive work to identify the barriers our students face and worked with a broad range of stakeholders to identify innovative solutions to address these challenges that often interfere with the ability of students to remain enrolled at their college or university u
ntil they complete their education Journey our work has revealed that our students are resilient and successfully balance a wide range of roles and responsibilities in addition to being students we also know basic needs and security and mental health concerns are significant barriers our students face these challenges existed prior to the pandemic and continue to impact our students with previous one-time financial support from the legislature Minnesota state was able to implement foundational s
teps to address these challenges all Minnesota state colleges and universities have implemented comprehensive basic needs in Mental Health Resource websites identified key contact people students can reach out to for basic needs support and have implemented communication strategies to raise awareness of resources among students we have also pursued in collaboration with students faculty and staff resources that benefit all colleges and universities such as our Mental Health First Aid training in
itiative and our first of its kind partnership with United Way 2-1-1 creating a basic needs resource Hub connecting students to basic needs and Mental Health Resources on their campus and in their Community 24 hours a day seven days a week and 365 days a year the support provided in this bill would enable Minnesota state colleges and universities to sustain the promising strategies that have been implemented so far and build upon this important work to expand these essential supports for student
s the funding provided would enable colleges and universities to implement additional resources that provide the support students need including additional staff and faculty who can help to support students basic needs and mental health funding would also enable Minnesota state to sustain creative strategies like our partnership with United Way 2-1-1 that benefit all students at all Minnesota state colleges and universities the funding would also enable Minnesota state to pursue additional resou
rces that could help enhance mental health support at all colleges and universities such as 24 7 access to supplemental mental health support services and additional training resources to help students faculty and staff recognize opportunities to help others and create campus communities that Foster positive mental health these additional resources would add tremendously to the great work being done already by faculty and staff throughout the Minnesota state system another example of supporting
students and addressing challenges that often interfere with their education journey is providing students with access to emergency grants we certainly want to acknowledge and thank senator omo verbatin for her work on this topic emergency grants are an essential component of our approach into addressing basic needs and security we know from listening to our students that many are one unexpected Financial emergency away from needing to make difficult decisions that will likely interfere with the
ir education Journey Minnesota State College and university-affiliated Foundations have made efforts to raise external funding to support college and university-specific emergency Grant programs Statewide programs like the emergency grant program administered by the Minnesota office of higher education also provide critical financial support to sustain emergency Grant programs the resources provided or generated through these efforts simply do not meet the demand presented by students for emerge
ncy Grant assistance we have heard from students and from faculty and staff who administer emergency Grant programs that the available funding is distributed quickly and once the funding available is distributed emergency grants are not able to be provided until additional funding is identified or raised the Federal Emergency grant funding provided during the pandemic provided much needed support for many students while this temporary measure made a difference for many students the need for emer
gency Grant support existed prior to the pandemic and will certainly be needed moving forward into the future the availability of emergency Grant support helps students to remain enrolled at their college or university and provide students with the opportunity to thrive research studies have demonstrated providing additional student support to address basic needs and mental health including emergency Grant support makes a significant difference in the ability of students to remain enrolled succe
ed academically and complete their Academic Program thank you for your consideration of this essential support for students and thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify Mr chair with your permission I would like to turn the presentation over to my colleague interim associate Vice Chancellor for academic Affairs Dr Jesse Mason uh Dr Mason uh please introduce yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony [Music] sure okay members of the committee I am Jess Mason um inte
rim Vice Chancellor for academic Affairs and thank you for the opportunity to say a few words about our transfer scholarship request supporting affordability for students who make Transition from a Minnesota state two-year College to a four-year University will support the persistence and completion of students who attend our colleges and transfer to our universities paired with our ongoing work on transfer Pathways and in improving the transfer experience for students transfer scholarships such
as this will help sustain and expand the Minnesota State College to university pipeline we are proposing funding for a two transfer scholarship programs option one is is leveraging our transfer pathway transfer Pathways make it easy to complete a specific associate's degree at a Minnesota State College and transfer to a Minnesota State University to earn a bachelor's degree meaning they transfer as a junior into the major without losing credits or taking extra courses along with the flexibility
to attend classes on campus or online option two is for those students who generally completes an AAA or as or AFA degree from any Minnesota State College and are guaranteed admission to every one of the seven state universities this collaboration ensures that students can seamlessly and reliably transfer from Minnesota state colleges to Minnesota State University this guarantees save students money by taking advantage of the lowest tuition rates in Minnesota at Minnesota state colleges and uni
versities how this would work is a student who who declare a major in one of our 25 transfer Pathways at the Minnesota State College um will receive the first installment of the scholarship once a student completes their aaras or AFA within three years and transfer successfully to a Minnesota State University then the student will receive the second installment of this scholarship now with your permission chair for Tay I would like to turn it over to vice president holler uh vice president thank
you for your testimony uh vice president holler please introduce yourself for the record and proceed good afternoon Sheriff pate and members of the committee for the record my name is Gene holler and I am the vice president for finance and administration at MSU Moorhead I'm passionate about the purpose of public higher education and the opportunity it provides for all minnesotans to create a better future for themselves for their families and for their communities I'm pleased to be testifying t
oday in support of the bill Senate file 2603 authored by senator kupec who proudly serves our district the first thing I want to impress upon you is that the stabilization funding and the biennial budget request does not mean that institutions are spending more money on the same things we are constantly looking for ways to remain efficient effective and relevant in order to accomplish our mission to transform the World by transforming lives because of the lead time necessary to strategically pla
n for an academic year msum's budget planning process begins 18 months in advance of the fiscal year or consistent transparent process honors the principles of shared governance and is stewarded by our University planning and budget committee a 24-member representative Group which includes students upbc holds open meetings throughout the academic year that culminate in providing input and feedback on the proposed budget plan to the administration during the budget planning process we review all
University expenditures in relation to the available revenues and we make reallocations from low priorities to higher ones to illustrate MSU Moorhead has eliminated over 87 positions during the past several years which represents about 12 percent of our Workforce and we closed 11 academic programs some of which include paralegal theater gerontology Spanish Spanish education and our undergraduate degree in philosophy and we recently launched several new high demand academic programs a nursing und
ergraduate program graduate programs and Social Work criminal justice and athletic training and we transitioned our school psychology to an online program to serve more students although we've been diligent about budget planning it's unfortunate to note that our enrollment has been declining at a faster Pace than we've been able to reduce expenses in the competitive higher education Market MSU Moorhead has implemented many new strategies to address the enrollment losses we implemented a tuition
reset to achieve parity with the amount charged for online courses and in-person courses this important Revenue neutral tuition reset benefited our students with Simplicity transparency and predictability in their tuition costs we updated our automatic scholarship offerings to align with our top competitors in Minnesota and bordering states in order to drive enrollment and proactively Market our quality and affordability we launched a new marketing campaign with a focus on Equity inclusion indiv
idual student support and Pathways to success we are working to embed equity and inclusion both in and out of the classroom so the student experience aligns with our marketing efforts we provide flexible options for students to continue advancing towards their degree with eight-week courses and our first three-week winter term we invest in programs that improve Student Success some of those programs include our grit program for conditional admits from disadvantaged populations our Smart Start pr
ogram for first-year students from diverse populations we provide Financial grants to remove barriers for students wanting to persu to participate in learning communities and we launched a new learning assistant student mentoring program in difficult science courses to help boost Student Success we work to increase awareness of basic needs support that is available through our Dragon pantry and through other services in the community we partnered with the education Advisory Board to conduct Mark
et studies to help guide our investments in new academic programs msum relies on state appropriation to stir to serve our students and our region without the requested legislative funding support MSU Moorhead will face significant and sobering deficits in both years of the upcoming biennium we will be forced to eliminate more faculty and staff positions we will be forced to make cuts that will jeopardize critical academic and student support services that are necessary to recruit and serve the n
eeds of an increasingly diverse student body we will be forced to defer technology and Facilities Investments necessary to ensure safety security and operational efficiencies ultimately these reductions will result in an erosion of the opportunity for all minnesotans to create a better future for themselves thank you for the opportunity to testify today I appreciate your commitment to public higher education into Minnesota state Mr chair that concludes my remarks with your permission I'd like to
turn the testimony over to Alex chrominga president of the Minnesota State University Association of administrative and service faculty thank you for your testimony president chrominga welcome please introduce yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony good afternoon and thank you my name is Alex cremenga I am the President of the Minnesota Association of service faculty also known as ASF which is part of Teamsters Local 320. our members represent a vast majority of the University
staff that deals with student services on campuses much of the work we do we've kind of developed a list is as we house feed advise counsel and provide academic Services other than anything that is taught in the classroom when I deal with students I usually do talk to them about the idea that your small chunk of your time is in the classroom the rest of your time is out there learning about life and that's where we fall into place I'm also here to discuss the important issue facing colleges and
universities in Minnesota the need to increase the state Appropriations to cover significant portions of the general general fund operating budget colleges and universities rely on state Appropriations to provide high quality education to students and to ensure that they are added that there are adequate programs and services to meet the needs of Minnesota state and asking and meeting the needs Minnesota state is asking for an increase of 125 million to continue to provide the exceptional educat
ion and meet the growing demands of our student body without an increase in the general fund revenues campuses will have to reduce some of their academic and service programs to students which simply is not acceptable students rely on these programs and services to help them succeed in their academic Pursuits and we must do everything we can to ensure that they have access to them colleges and universities are continually re-evaluating reallocating spending to maintain focus on Student Success a
nd other priorities while preserving affordability however additional resources are required to maintain student programming and academic programming and keep tuition affordable we know that the investment in education is critical for the future success of our state and providing the necessary funding to our colleges and universities we can ensure that our students receive the Education and Training they need to succeed in today's economy I urge you to consider the importance of this issue and t
o support any increase in the state Appropriations for our colleges and universities thank you for your time and consideration I am open to any questions if not I would like to pass my time over to Jared pigeon from Moorhead State University thank you for your testimony Mr Pridgen please introduce yourself and proceed with your testimonial well thank you greetings uh chair for today vice vice chair putting the members of the higher education committee colleagues across the system my name is Jare
d pigeon pronouns he him member of Minnesota State University Associated administrative service faculty with local 320 identify as a first generation biracial man and it's an honor to be here at the Capitol on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Ojibwe anishinaabe people I've worked at MSU Moorhead for seven years and also a graduate of of msum I'm here to speak to you about two two key issues tuition costs cost of attendance and expanded Supportive Services um while Minnesota state institutio
ns are already some of the most affordable and accessible higher education options in the state we cannot ignore the fact that the tuition and the cost remain significant challenge for many students to address this issue Minnesota state is FY 2425 budget requests includes a funding request of an additional 75 million for tuition freezing for both bienniums and the 26 million for expanded student support services this will provide much needed relief to students struggling with financial burden of
higher education and ensure that they are not deterred from pursuing their academic goals in addition to a tuition freeze that is also critical to expand student Support Services to help ensure that students succeed state colleges and universities serve students of many different agencies ages socioeconomic statuses racial identities and students with various needs many students face challenges outside of the classroom that can be barriers to completion even if they are succeeding academically
this initiative would fund student supports resources such as student advisors social workers diversity and inclusion workers such as myself and other resources to help students plan their educational efforts to fit into their life activities and balance their concerns with life concerns by providing these Services we can help ensure that all students have the support that they need to achieve their academic goals many of you know that in June 2019 Minnesota state set a critical goal by 2030 to
eliminate the educational Equity gaps within every Minnesota state institution it is a staggering ambitious goal and one that will require both intentional system system changes funding increases culture change and Innovation further it will require advocacy leadership with partners and stakeholders across the state to accomplish this in conclusion I hope that you see the time now is to act I implore you to not think about higher education or the role of Minnesota state in a in a vacuum isolated
unit Minnesota state is making a difference from the students we serve to our business partners to those we employ we are here for the state chances are good you know someone or you know someone who has benefited from the work of our state colleges and universities we serve roughly 300 000 students each year with more black and Indigenous students as well as well as students of color attending our colleges and universities and any other institution in Minnesota so we are providing Minnesota's n
ext Workforce and we need your help with this funding request they asked me to come support the students and I showed up I thank each of you for showing up and making a difference from Minnesota let's stand strong and bold [Music] thank you so much for your testimony um and right now we're going to go to the questions portion um and uh I'll ask first uh the first question and I believe well first a comment in a question and I'll move along if that's okay Senator over big awesome awesome I apprec
iate all the testifiers all coming up um a few of you spoke about uh the need for student support and um I saw that we have 125 million for student support and 26 million going to expand student support services and I appreciate that because we know that if we don't provide that kind of support and we don't provide the wraparound services that they need then students drop out and they don't go to school so I appreciate you all highlighting this and willing to address it um another um another ano
ther area was around faculty support I believe one of the testifiers spoke about um uh the struggles and challenges with that saying that we can't do more with less and that um there's not enough the the money to pay the staff has not been keep keeping up with inflation and I believe this question may be best for vice president holla or anybody but I've also been receiving emails and calls from administrators from different colleges speaking about the budget challenges they're facing with and al
so with faculty retention issues as well as the need or the um the the difficult decisions to let go of staff and faculty um so can you just tell us a little bit about more about those struggles with faculty retention and what it would mean in the short term and long term for the system foreign [Music] members of the committee I'll start with the response and then and vice president holler could could add on um what what we are starting to see across the system and what the trustees and the chan
cellor heard at the listening sessions is that it is more difficult to recruit and retain our faculty because of the um minimal salary adjustments that have been made the last several years so we're not only losing um in the in the higher education Marketplace but also in some areas where we're also competing with the private sector it's getting more difficult to get the the talent needed to expand programs when when the potential is there to do so um related to institutional budgets um as a com
mittee's aware there's been enrollment declines across the system for the past decade or so so many of our colleges and universities just about all of them have been making reductions to account for the changes in enrollment and that's been compounded by some years of not getting enough funding to cover inflation adjustments or increases in in compensation that have occurred so institutions have had to make reductions to cover those costs as well and in addition to that because our revenue is th
ere are two major sources our state appropriation and tuition revenue is the last four years we've we've raised tuition three percent each year in 20 um 20 and 21 and then in 22 and 23 close to three and a half and three and a half percent each year and that that goes back to making up Revenue that we need to operate our colleges and universities and it's put more pressure on the students but our college and university administrators and Leadership teams and all of our stakeholders have made sac
rifices over the past 10 to 12 years to make sure that they can continue to provide the programs and services that are are expected of their institutions uh thank you for your response um I'll give a moment to vice president holler if she'd like or I can move on to Senator um thank you for your question and the opportunity to provide um additional context so in my testimony I um alluded to our enrollment to clients and how we haven't been able to make budget reductions fast enough to keep up wit
h our enrollment declines I also indicated that we reallocate our budget among uh from lower priorities to higher priorities and probably one of the things I want to impress upon you is when when I talk about lower priorities I'm I'm not talking about unhealthy academic programs I am talking about healthy programs that we we just simply can't continue to invest in at the at the expense of of other programs and so we're making these impossible choices on campus um uh to to try and to try and serv
e our students and and you know to your point then how do we retain and retain our faculty because we do have that good programs that we're really needing to to um I guess I'll just say cut at the ex because we don't don't have enough resources to to support those programs anymore and you know the morale of Faculty is is really impacted by that in their decision and choice to to remain at at Minnesota state or our particular institution um it it it really um ripples down throughout the instituti
on when those incredibly difficult decisions need to be made uh thank you for your response uh thank you Mr chair um I first just want to start with all the things that I really appreciate um in this packet from in state I I know that you serve uh Minnesota you're serving our residence you're serving students of color um you're serving first generation students low-income students just so key to uh us achieving our education attainment goals that are set out by uh Ohi and this ass starts with um
stabilization and I know that our schools are are really in trouble if Mid-State does not receive that funding and I've I've heard that from Senator kupec we've heard that from The Faculty that have come to visit us from our from our students as well that this you know the state has not invested in mint State and generally in higher education to the levels that we need to to save our schools but I just want to highlight the thing things that I think are so responsive to what we have heard in in
this committee from our students right um who are what we what we do this all for our students have said you know we need um we have these critical needs that need to be met um and the first thing you'll see in this subdivision is 125 million to support student critical needs our students have told us we can't afford uh tuition right we can't keep can't keep up with these Rising costs and then I see the 75 million for that tuition freeze very responsive to that that ask from our students um our
students have have mentioned just all these other out-of-pocket costs besides tuition and the next thing is 2 million to reduce those costs with you know free offerings for course materials and different resources and textbooks um we've heard about just broadly like student support services and this includes the 26 million um for additional staff in in areas of highest needs student advisors we've heard a lot about mental health needs on campuses social workers basic needs coordinators communit
y resource connectors mental health support staff and then you know I'm passionate about the emergency grants and that's the 10 million that's listed at the bottom here but I I just I want to point out that I appreciate that our students have come to this committee and they've said here's what we need and I see this reflected in the bill in front of us today and in the testimony from Min State I really appreciate that and I think that needs to be our Focus here in the higher education committee
is putting our students first actually listening to what they what they say and what what their needs are I think we have a duty to do that I really appreciate seeing that laid out so specifically in this bill uh thank you Senator are there any other questions from our committee members Senator Duckworth thank you Mr chair I appreciate it I lost track are we done with testifiers on this bill or do you have others okay um when I look at lines 1.9 and 1.10 talks about the 40 million dollars in fis
cal year 2024 and the 85 million dollars in fiscal year 25 being used to stabilize system operations and keep tuition affordable so I don't know who can answer this question but I'm still going to ask it maybe somebody could chime in if the idea is to stabilize system operations and keep tuition affordable does that mean we're going to have little to no growth in expenses or are we going to continue to see expenditures increase because to me when we use verbiage like stabilize system operations
and keep tuition affordable in my head I guess I kind of see us drawing a line or placing a limit on hey we're going to stabilize everything keep tuition affordable but then when I see the amounts of proposed budget dollars in the bill it leads me to believe that unfortunately we might we might continue to see expenditures grow which would thereby impact the cost of tuition in the future so I'll stop there Mr chair and I've got a couple more thank you either Senator Cooper or vice Chancellor Mac
kie um the chair fate Senator Duckworth um the structure of the the stabilization request um does anticipate that there's additional base expenditures both for fiscal year and 24 and 25 and and the primary driver behind those expenditures relates to increases in base compensation and that and that relates to collective bargaining that would occur in in previous bienniums we've received new funding in the first year of the biennium and then the funding's generally been flat in the second year the
biennium so we've had increased costs in both years of the biennium and I've had not have any new Revenue in a period of enrollment decline to cover those new expenditures so as we think or as we thought about the term of stabilization it had to do with being able to cover the base inflationary costs that we experience primary really due to being a very heavy people driven organization with 75 percent of our budget for the general fund is is essentially on faculty and staff compensation Senator
Duckworth uh thank you Mr chair and thank you for that answer um kind of a similar question when I look at lines 1.15 to 1.17 it talks about uh 25 million dollars in 2024 and 50 million dollars in 2025 to be utilized to freeze uh the academic years of 2023 and 24 and 2024 2025 respectively to freeze tuition rates and so I guess my question is you know are we going to freeze tuition rates and then work to reduce expenses so that we can keep tuition rates low and maybe begin to bring them down or
are we just pushing a pause button and then in a couple years later looking at increasing tuition again and really what I'm getting at I don't I don't mean for this to be a combative question by any means what I'm really asking is what what is the actual long-term solution to what has been the continuing rise in cost of tuition because if we continue to just do a freeze but increase expenditures and then do a freeze and increase expenditures are we ever really going to tackle the problem that i
s being communicated To Us by students I'd say it's the main issue communicated To Us by students which is college cost too much money and have to take out too many loans so what can we do to actively begin to reduce expenditures and thereby reduce tuition making it affordable for all students thank you uh Senator Cooper Vice Chancellor Mackey um chair fate I'm Senator Duckworth um the the 75 million for the tuition freeze the 25 million in the first year is in lieu of a three and a half percent
tuition increase for undergraduate students and the 50 million in the second year is the 25 million again in the first year so that it it's on our on our base appropriation moving forward and then a new 25 million um for 24-25 academic year in lieu of a tuition increase the overarching goal is to is to try to move back to the state supporting closer to two-thirds of a student's education right now our appropriation covers about 53 percent compared to 47 percent for tuition if Senate filed 2603
was adopted that would move us closer to 60 percent and 40 percent and closer to that two-thirds one-third goal um in addition as we look at our biennial budget request reducing expenditures is always on the Forefront of um our presidents and our campuses Minds as well as the system and we do things year after year to try to improve efficiencies and then squeeze out as as many discretionary funds as possible however as we think about our biennial budget request we have aspects of it the student
support aspect as well as the workforce and economic development our investments in enrollment strategy and that's our our other drivers for our enrollment to stabilize or or perhaps even grow again in the future that drives more Revenue to our institution so as as we think about this request and in part part of Senate file 2603 we have a lot of Investments there beyond the tuition freeze additional student support service the scholarship programs for transfer students as well as on the other si
de that you'll hear more about Thursday on Workforce Development scholarships is to drive that cost of attendance and increase the enrollment at our colleges and universities uh thank you Senator Duckworth one final question because we've got to move on thank you uh thank you Mr chair and thank you for that answer and I guess I would say you know one solution to decreasing enrollment or one thing that might encourage enrollment is if tuition was less um when I look at some of the other figures i
n this bill that you that you mentioned which are certainly worthwhile causes um but under student support it's 50 million and 75 million further on it's uh another couple of million over two years flipping to the back it's on line 2.1 13 million and 13 million again 2.9 is 6 million 6 million and 2.12 it's 5 million and 5 million so my get my question is that's millions and millions and millions of dollars that could be used to go toward a reduction in tuition and so as we're having this conver
sation we're trying to if we truly want to stop the cycle of what what continues to be rising tuition and we want to make it more affordable uh can we reduce expenditures and instead of maybe utilizing some of these funds toward some of these other areas not completely eliminate them but reduce them and put it right toward things that would keep tuition low and keep College more affordable that's all I've got Mr chair thank you uh thank you so much Senator Duckworth and with that I think this bi
ll uh this bill will be laid over so thank you so much Senator Cooper thank you next we have the University of Minnesota appropriation first from Senator Murphy amongst friends foreign [Music] before we begin I believe uh we have the A2 amendment that the university will walk through but we would like to move the A2 Amendment thank you Senator fate yes that is an author's Amendment this is the first time we've heard this bill and I'd be grateful if the committee would consider adding the A2 Amen
dment to the bill thank you Senator Senator Murphy um all those in favor say aye those opposed the amendment is adopted please proceed thank you Senator Forte I'm happy to be before you today carrying Senate file 2636 which is the University of Minnesota's operations and maintenance budget of course the University of Minnesota has been before this committee already talking about their budget this is with this amendment uh supplement to that budget request and I am grateful to be uh here with Myr
on France and with Julie towninson who are going to speak a little bit more to the University's request and why there's uh this amendment and with that I will turn it to Mr France thank you Senator Murphy Mr friends thank you Mr chair and thank you members thank you Senator Murphy uh one what I'd like to do is explain a little bit about the requests that we've made and obviously talk a little bit about the amendment that we put before you that was approved by the Board of Regents this last Frida
y uh one of the things that you obviously you know that we're under a lot of inflationary pressures we all are and at the University we our first part of our request was a 45 million dollar incremental increase in the next two years recurring increase for our core mission now this request is based upon our analysis that we expected about a 90 million dollar increase in these core Services over the next year two years and so our our belief was that we should shoulder part of that responsibility f
or the other 45 million so we're requesting the first 45 million of what we anticipate to be a 90 million increase in inflationary costs over the next year and that includes uh the next two years I'm sorry but that includes supporting student Student Success Through supporting student services it all this also includes ensuring delivery of high quality teaching we want to support compensation for our talented faculty and staff in fact I have several faculty here today Professor Colleen Flaherty
Manchester Professor Mark B and Professor Donna Spanish Martin who is our faculty legislative liaison both Professor Manchester and Professor B serve on the executive committee of the Senate faculty at the university the other Senate in the state of Minnesota and they're here to show support and for our for our request and one of the things that we've talked a lot about with our faculty is is the need for increasing our compensation you've heard that from Minnesota state for obvious reasons you
know one of the things that we like to talk about at the university is is the economic impact that we have and why the faculty and the staff that we have at the University are so critical to maintain that that rankings we're ranked number three in the Big Ten and number nine in the United States among public universities by the academic ranking of world universities the uh the university is ranked number two in the Big Ten and number 20 in the world based on Research impact by research.com the U
wins greater than a billion dollars annually in competitive grants and contracts and we're in the top 10 public universities in terms of U.S patents that have been issued we believe that the University's economic contribution to the state is nearly 10 billion dollars every year the University's medical school at Camino trained 70 percent of the University of Minnesota the Minnesota Minnesota Physicians and is ranked number three in Primary Care in the country and number eight in research among
public universities that is why our request which includes compensation for our faculty is so critical the faculty salaries currently rank near the bottom of the Big Ten at the University right now many staff salaries are 10 to 20 percent below the market value and our faculty engagement obviously is down 16 percent as we measure that since 2019. we we understand the faculty are 2.4 times more likely to leave the U when they are disengaged and adequate inadequate compensation is what is the lead
ing Factor that's that's listed we think it's important at this time to make sure that we engage our faculty and staff and let me talk a little bit about some of the staff success we've had recently we we are pleased to to note that we reached agreements with the teamsters all three of our afscme units for clerical health care and Technical and our law enforcement labor Services which represent the University of Minnesota Police Department these agreements represent about 3 400 employees who per
form jobs ranging from plowing the snow cleaning our buildings serving meals to our students caring for patients entering student data in our systems and tending animals in our Veterinary Hospital some of our key outcomes of the agreements include a 3.85 percent General adjustment to and a minimum of twenty dollars per hour we believe the importance of being able to keep and retain our talented faculty our talented employees and we want to acknowledge that part of our request for the 45 million
dollar Corps mission is to support both compensation for staff and for faculty finally also though as part of the 45 million dollar request I want to talk a little bit about managing our cost pressures the cost pressures are real and we're seeing things like lab reagents and supplies subscription costs academic journals and databases are going through the roof in terms of price one of the areas that we also must must maintain support for is something that we also heard from our colleagues at Min
nesota state and that is Student Success Through Student Services mental health and overall wellness support student engagement that Fosters a sense of community respect and welcoming for all students Career Development and planning academic advising tutoring options student safety including emergency and Crisis Intervention all of these student services are critical to making sure that our students make that successful transfer from high school through college one of the things we also wanted t
o include was a Minnesota resident scholarship we are all understanding the concerns and needs about enrollment challenges that were that we're all facing and we believe that the resident Minnesota resident scholarship can add an opportunity for Minnesota students and for those students in Minnesota to be able to access and afford the University of Minnesota we're requesting 30 million dollars recurring beginning in fiscal year 24 for a new Minnesota resident scholarship now these funds would be
used to recruit Minnesota students to remain in the state at any one of our campuses and then to retain them through graduation the multi-year awards will be offered to all residents entering freshmen at Crookston Duluth Morris and Rochester and to first generation Minnesota residents entering as freshmen or transfer students at the Twin Cities campus and finally the third part of our original request is for Public Safety the final item we're requesting is five million dollars recurring beginni
ng in fiscal year 24. These funds will be used to supplement the Investments that we've already met made and continue to make that allow us to address areas of needs faster than would be able to do on our own part of our core Mission will address Public Safety ongoing public safety issues this particular request is for an additional five million dollars to be used primarily for cameras security equipment card access controls for building entrances for the initial equipment and then the ongoing m
aintenance of these programs as we go forward these funds will also be used for increased security Personnel additional overtime shifts and vehicle replacement program on the campus we strongly believe that by enhancing the security of the buildings and the campus we can provide more opportunity for our police officers to be able to patrol and provide Public Safety support and emergency support for our students we're proud to say that our University of Minnesota Police Department is often the Fi
rst Responders to an to a situation requiring medical treatment and are there and all of our officers are especially trained in being First Responders so those those are the three areas that we requested initially that totaled to 205 million dollars for the for the biennium but during the course the last several months we've discovered several issues that we wanted to add to the request that as I mentioned with all three of these were approved by the Board of Regents this last Friday and I'm goi
ng to ask vice president Thompson to walk through those three additional requests and then take any questions you might have Mr chair if that's all right thank you for your testimony Ms Thomason please introduce yourself for the record and proceed afternoon Mr chair charity my name is Julie Thomason I am the budget director for the University of Minnesota and this afternoon I'll provide a brief overview of the three additional amended items to our our request it's the first of our three new requ
est items is actually something before this committee already through a different avenue we want to formally and officially adopt as part of our request the governor and Lieutenant Governor's recommendation in the office of higher education's budget for the American Indian Scholars Program this program is supported by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and many others it would include a 4.5 million dollar increased appropriation for the University of Minnesota and a similar amount for Minnesot
a state to provide a first dollar tuition and fees pathway for eligible American Indian students to complete an undergraduate education in our system the Morris campus in particular will benefit from this program due to the unique role they play in educating a large number of Native American and Indigenous students but as I mentioned the the funds would cover tuition and fees but would also be allowed to support students through increased services to help them through to graduation we see this a
s a real need in recruiting eligible students to the state and to our campuses and serving them successfully through to graduation the second of our three new request items comes about due to a recent update in our tuition Revenue estimates every year after the second semester begins we re-forecast revenues based on actual course registrations and we have discovered that tuition Revenue impacted by enrollment related issues is down more than anticipated on all of our campuses we are projecting a
24 million dollar shortfall so without an increase to our base appropriation in that amount it would mean further Reliance on internal spending reductions and potentially higher tuition rate increases to balance our budget the changes in enrollment are due to a variety of factors exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic I want to emphasize that the Twin Cities campus is not seeing an enrollment drop in freshmen we have had some historically large entering classes the last couple of years and things
look good actually for next fall as well the demand is high for the Twin Cities campus but what we are talking about here when we talk about enrollment is a change in total enrollment including continuing students across all of our campuses we had expected and planned for some reductions but the magnitude of change is greater than anticipated particularly we are seeing some ongoing and direct impacts of the pandemic itself things like economic hardships health issues responsibilities at home fo
r child care changes in high school experience and expectations and even employment opportunities through the pandemic all have a combined impact on our enrollment along with continuing demographic changes they've LED to a variety of challenging outcomes across all of our campuses there has been a decrease in student retention on all campuses a decrease in graduate and non-resident enrollment a decrease in credits taken a decrease in freshmen at Crookston Duluth and Morris in particular and a de
crease in transfer students largely due to lower enrollments in community colleges across the region for those same pandemic reasons and on the other end of the spectrum enrollments also declined more than anticipated because more students are progressing through college more rapidly and graduating after less time at the University there are fewer fifth year seniors for example than there used to be which is a good thing and something that we're striving for but it is happening at a rate faster
than we anticipated I want to stress that we experience some level of tuition Revenue variants every year but overall our estimating processes have produced good and accurate results prior to this year we have been able to manage the variances that do exist within our regular budget development process focusing decisions on the few units that require special attention each year but this year the variances are larger and more widespread thus creating a greater Financial challenge for us to addres
s and finally our third item our conversations with this committee and others have shown that there is a lot of interest in a tuition freeze for University students in the next biennium so to deliver that certainty for Resident undergraduate students and to implement a tuition freeze for two years we are asking for 40.5 million in the biennium OR 13.5 million incremental in each of the next two years to offset what would otherwise have been a 3.5 percent rate increase on the Twin Cities campus u
p to 3.5 percent increases on the Rochester campus and one percent increases on each of the other three campuses those rate assumptions were modeled and discussed earlier in the legislative session as potential outcomes if the university received its full original biennial budget request for core Mission support the 135 million or 45 million incremental each year outlined by senior vice president France just moments ago it's important to understand that this 40.5 million for the tuition freeze i
s requested on top of or is kind of contingent on receiving the increased appropriation for core Mission support and the tuition shortfall item that I just described our plan to cover the projected 90 million dollars in cost increases that senior vice president Franz mentioned in each of the next two years prior to projecting the 24 million dollar tuition shortfall was to seek half from the state that's the 45 million per year uh core Mission request and to cover the other half through spending
reductions and tuition rate increases we're still planning on the internal spending cuts no matter the outcome of the state Appropriations even if we received full funding the university will be making internal spending reductions but this tuition freeze proposal would remove our ability to raise the tuition rates on Resident undergraduates so if we did not get the 45 million per year in core Mission support or the updated tuition shortfall request and there was a tuition freeze for Resident und
ergraduate students we would need to implement significant tuition rate increases on our other student populations which could further impact enrollment and substantially larger into internal spending cuts which would have significant negative impacts on our programs and our services so we see these three proposals as tied together in that way and with that Mr chair that concludes our brief overview of the items we're requesting but we would be happy to address any questions the committee may ha
ve thank you for your testimony um we'll move on to the questions from our members our first question is from Senator um verbain thank you Mr chair um as I mentioned earlier I have heard time and time again from our students that they need more support um so I'm glad to see this tuition freeze piece added into the amendment it seems like after seeing the governors push you then decided to include this uh these dollars for the scholarships glad to see that um but we've heard from students particu
larly students from the University of Minnesota undergraduate student um government that they are struggling with everything from groceries to they can't get appointments with counselors so I'm honestly a little frustrated that I see things on here like improving rankings and I don't see that call out for student Support Services [Music] um vice president Franz you mentioned you mentioned in your testimony things like um health and wellness but like where is that in the bill what is the Universi
ty of Minnesota's plan to support your students and actually if I can just add one more thing to that too are you listening to your students like what is how are you Gathering that feedback because we we heard from our we heard from the undergraduate student government in in committee like do you have confidence in the University of Minnesota's ask and there seems to be some major disconnects so um I would really like to see you point out where that is in the bill and what is that plan to contin
ue on that conversation and listen to students thank you Senator overband Mr France or Miss Thomas Mr Mr chair and thank you Senator I think one of the key components is to make sure that we do listen and we do we make changes I think one of the things the president's initiative on Mental Health that she she initiated with uh Chancellor maholta Defender uh Defender mahalter from Minnesota state was one of those areas where we came together as two institutions to work toward providing those menta
l health connections more Mental Health Services but I think on an ongoing basis we we listen to students a lot and part of our art our role is to make sure that we meet with our student leaders in in the Minnesota in the University of Minnesota Government and one of the things for example they talked about I think was last year was the concern about food insecurity and ways to deal with that so one of the programs we've embarked on with them is to enhance and increase the the food shelf that we
have available on the University of Minnesota campus we've also so initiated a universal transit pass for all Minnesota students on the Twin Cities campus and part of that was designed not only for sustainability issues and and just good good use of resources but also to make sure people have access and can get to food sources that may not be right where they are living so we we listen a lot to to what students want to do and what they think they need we understand that they they are requesting
more and more services the the request for the 45 million is that's where the or the 90 million estimate we assume for the next year's increase 45 of million of which we will cover that is where the student services The Faculty compensation and those programs are all located that is an ongoing Mission commitment by the university to continue those uh those commitments to students so we we understand that there are ongoing concerns and we we will listen a lot and we try to make sure we adjust to
those as we as we need them but I I think part of our key is to make sure that we ask for the right resources from the state to support those services so we can deliver those to the students so we have an ongoing commitment to those students so I think in terms of the 45 million dollar request I'm I'm convinced that that request will provide the needed continuing to provide for those needed resources but you know we're always listening and we're always going to have to be able to adapt thank yo
u Senator movie thank you Mr chair yeah and and there's been time to adapt right because we've also heard from students in this committee and I I'm still frustrated with it with what I see in front of me um the other question that I have is um for vice president president um Thomason you mentioned the cuts that the university is gonna have to make and we have heard concern from Regents from students about um you know the um a lot of funds at the top right administrative costs um that Regents are
approving these you know salary increases um for the president for some of our you know those highest earners in the University how are you going to ensure that our faculty and the people who are closest to the students are not on the receiving end of those cuts Mr friends and Miss Thomason Mr chair Senator I'll take that one if you don't mind Senator I think one of the things we've been engaged in that is going to help in that area a lot is a project we call Peak which is positioned for excell
ence alignment and knowledge and so what we're trying to do with that is to make sure that every dollar we receive whether it's tuition or or money from the state the highest percentage of that dollar is used for teaching and research and Mission and Student Success now what we're trying to do is to streamline the University administrative services so what we're trying to do is say that we believe that administrative Services can be more effectively more effectively be delivered more streamlined
and our goal is to one of the things that's happened over the many universities are very decentralized in terms of their administrative Services we're trying to centralize those Services have more control and at the same time we do that it provides really better Pathways success for our employees to have opportunities to advance but what we're doing is trying to take that ability to deliver whether it's financing Human Resources marketing Communications I.T we're taking all those areas and we'r
e right in phase one of that implementation phase one of that program to take all the system campuses and and several academic units and my my office and and start applying those principles to make sure that we deliver the best service we can for the lowest cost you know we're down in terms of employee count I want to say around and and what we want to do is that that provides some opportunities for salary savings and cost savings so we don't want to just fill those jobs what we want to do is be
very strategic about where those jobs go how they're supervised who they report to so we take very seriously I share that that effort with the vice president of human resources at the University report directly to the president and to the board and we just actually gave a review to the Board of Regents not that long ago about how critical this is and how we're moving down that road we we believe in the long run we'll be able to divert more and more dollars to the mission teaching research and s
ervice and reduce those dollars we we estimate that our administrative expenditure is in the 10 percent range and our goal is to never let it get above that is to continue to reduce it over time so we want to we want to monitor it we want to measure it and we want to reduce it to the extent we can thank you thank you I want to take up too much more of our time and let other committee members ask questions but um I think I've made my points clear I just want us to really take note of the differen
t proposals that we have in front of us today um and and really put students first and really pay attention to if that is reflected in the bills in front of us uh thank you Senator um I have a question that sort of ties into what you were asking if I'm going to go in and pass it off to Senator Eric as well um and I've raised this concern previously also with President Gabriel and the Board of Regents but I'm very concerned about the University's acquisition of predominantly student housing in th
e stadium Village area in particular the dynacon properties which was given as a shared as a charitable gift with the intent of being affordable student housing and within that plan is going to be torn down also the University Village which with which also has about a thousand uh beds of student housing has also been purchased and by the U.N will be torn down as well um with the plan so as we're hearing the use requests and I know this isn't part of uh the the budget request is here and as we le
arn more about the core Mission and support and your strategic plan can you tell us more about how are you going to address those concerns because I believe that with this long-term plan in place right now um with college affordability that eliminating the housing supply for students is going to make things much worse thank you Mr chair one of the reasons we were so engaged in helping to continue those housing units you you mentioned on Stadium Village and on the south the east side of Campus wa
s to make sure that they remained there we have um several we own several of those now and we what we try to do is to make we want to keep those going we've been investing quite a bit of money in those current facilities to make sure that they're up to speed they're up to date they make they're good quality and we have no plans to tear them down unless and until there's a new hospital that would be built in that in that area but that's you know at a minimum 10 years away and our goal would be at
that time to make sure that as we move as the University moves to the East and if there's a new state-of-the-art hospital place there in the next five to ten years we would want to make sure that there's a transition to affordable housing in that area but we're fully committed it's part of our campus plan the 2021 I think it was campus plan to make sure that we provide that there's affordable housing in that area so we're really committed to what we have there and maintaining it until the futur
e and at that point we'll we'll plan with other folks to make sure there are other options available at that time uh thank you because um these are some of the concerns that were raised by the students and myself as well and um again the denikin properties in particular was given as a charitable gift with the intent of maintaining and preserving the student housing and if we're having conversations around um uh removing that and tearing that down I think when you also need to have a conversation
about how to preserve that and ensure that we're committed um to not uh making that a permanent loss um so I one last question I have is can you tell us a little bit about how much was spent acquiring the property for the Eastway project and also the purchase of the University of university village Mr chair the University of Minnesota Foundation is the entity that purchased the East Gateway property and I don't have that information in front of me but we can get that for you and I don't recall
I don't have it on top of my head but that uh how the acquisition of the Village Stadium came about but I can get that information and provide it to you thank you Mr friends um Senator Rick thank you Mr chair and as I look at the bill in front of us this is an incredibly large request with the amendment we're now looking at 742 million in the first year and 801 in the second and as I look through the details that you're giving us some of the specifics uh I screwed up on the senate floor this aft
ernoon with my math hopefully I'm right this time but we're you're telling us how 31.8 million of that is going to be allocated what about the rest of it is there a plan is there details I'm if you're asking this kind of number from us do you have anything more specific for us how it's going to be used where it's going to go uh for us to make this kind of a decision Mr friends Mr chair excuse me Senator you mean with respect to the in addition to what we're asking for the the items we're asking
for this year Senator Eric I did not uh catch that oh Mr friends can you please repeat the question so I'm not sure I understand what uh what you want to itemize the the entire amount or the amount that we're asking for in our bill this year for uh from the Senate Senator all right so uh Mr chair try to clarify so when we look at the the new request um we're looking at 742 million plus in the first year and we're looking at 801 million plus in the second year but as I go through what you then go
bring up afterwards that is going to itemize some of that spending that adds up to 31.8 million so that's over 700 million in the first year that we're not being explained what that's being done for and over 800 million in the second year that we have no explanation as we sit here what that is being used for so is there some more information that we can have if we're going to make this decision so that we have some clue what this money is actually for I mean I I heard you say we're looking at t
he supporting staff and things like that but to what level what what are we looking at with this proposal Mr friends or Miss Thomason Mr chair Senator just I'll try and clarify a little bit the bill and our request the bill the dollar amounts that you mentioned includes our base appropriation of 689 million 256 000 each year that is our base o m appropriation that would continue with no change were we not to request anything in addition the writers that you see except for the tuition freeze writ
er and the American Indian scholar program those are old writers that are attached to our base Appropriations so those are not new uh so if you're looking at uh the uh excuse me you're looking at the 15 million in fiscal year 24 and the 15 million and 25 for example uh that is an old writer attached to our base appropriation so what we are asking for on top of the 689 256 000 is now 122 million in year one for six items and those are explained in the materials I believe we provided to the commit
tee that 122 million in year one is for 45 million for core Mission support 30 million dollars for the Minnesota resident scholarship program five million dollars for Safety and Security 4.5 million for the American Indian Scholars Program 24 million for the enrollment driven tuition shortfall and 13.5 million for the tuition freeze those are the incremental increases above the base the second year of the biennium we are asking for an additional 58.5 million which would be the second year increa
se of the 45 million for core Mission support and the second year increase of 13.5 million for the tuition freeze those are our new requests so I hope that helps clarify the bill you're looking at versus our requested increase to our base Senator Eric all right thank you Mr chair I guess that's I'm a little confused why there's so much the underlying here that would indicate new language when being told that that's existing um I'll maybe sit down with the Senate staff afterwards to to understand
how this is drafted compared to what they're requesting so thank you Senator Senator Duckworth thanks um just briefly uh Mr chair and some of it I guess ties to Senator Rick's question um you know I heard the testimony about uh 30 million for Resident scholarships I like to see residents being prioritized I think that's great I think I heard 5 million for Public Safety initiatives I think we've heard that loud and clear from parents and and students and staff that's an important thing and then
I heard 40.5 million for the tuition freeze it but I didn't see it broken down like some of these other things are in here so I was just assuming they were part of the the larger amounts that were being requested um I do want to say that I I appreciate it's being shared that if you're looking at a 90 million dollar increase in in cost that you are attempting to tackle half of that through expense reductions or however you're anticipating planning to do that certainly not easy I've got a school d
istrict back home that's looking at a budget deficit of 7 million and they're announcing very difficult local news and information I'll be curious to learn more about and they're experiencing an increase in enrollment so I'm going to be very curious as we look at the University of Minnesota and other higher education institutions to see what continues to happen with enrollment especially as we become further and further removed from the pandemic to see what truly is a result of that and then wha
t is maybe just a change that we're seeing for whatever reason so I'm wrapping up Mr chair but I just wanted to reiterate I appreciate you going into detail and trying to tackle half of that yourselves and some of the other things that you've prioritized with some of the the spending you plan to do as well thank you thank you Senator Duckworth Mr France Miss Thomason nope okay any other questions from committee members saying none thank you so much for your testimony and the bill is now laid ove
r they apologize go ahead Senator Murphy okay and a lot of testifiers to come uh I I think this committee has a very challenging job in front of it and you're hearing some of that Challenge from our members the regions took a vote and altered uh the the course for this proposal uh having been in this place before where we have done tuition freezes uh while I understand it relieves some pressure on students and their families and perhaps on debt it is just a short-term solution and it doesn't nec
essarily get to the underlying issues that I think this committee has to wrestle with so I'm grateful that we're laying this over and we'll come back to that side of the table and join the rest of you in the work that we have to do for our higher education institutions thank you thank you Senator Murphy I apologize for jumping the gun like that thank you thank you perfect members our next order of business is Senate file 2075. you may have noticed if you looked at the clock that we're kind of st
ruggling for time so the plan for today is to go through the testimony and then we will lay the bill over and then we will have discussion and amendments and such if necessary at a different date just so everyone's clear on that and I would also advise our testifiers if you could please to be as efficient as you could we do want to hear from all of you and hear all of your concerns but we want to hear from all of you and we don't have a ton of time so um uh Senator Forte to your bill if you woul
d please thank you so much uh Mr chair and committee members I'll keep this very brief I know we only have a little bit of time left so I want more time for the testifiers this is just a bill that was a request from the administration relating to Appropriations for OE office fire Education Minnesota state colleges and universities U of M and Mayo Clinic and I'll let the testifiers go more in depth onto the bill as well so thank you so much Mr chair foreign so uh should we head to testimony our f
irst testifier is uh Miss Oliver may I ask if to expedite again I'm going to call up a couple people at a time so miss uh colormore call more if you would please could you sit at the other uh uh chair I miss all of you please State your full name for the record and commence your testimony when you're ready yeah thank you Mr chair and members my name is Nikki Oliver I'm the director of Grants and government relations for the Minnesota office of higher education and understanding that we're short
on time and that you've already pretty much heard the governor's budget already and you have the bill in front of you I do want to like hijack I don't know it's a legislative reporter I don't know their name but they said the governor's giving out all A's this budget focuses on affordability access attainment and we have a lot of testifiers to Senator umuver baton's point we heard from a lot of the students and a lot of stakeholders and they're here to speak to the bill I will pass it over to th
em thank you Miss Oliver Miss cullomore if you please State your full name for the record and commence your testimony when you're ready thank you Mr chair and committee members my name is Miriam cullomore and I serve as the student parent and whole family coordinator with the Minnesota office of higher education thank you for the opportunity to testify today um the student parent support initiative would provide grants to institutions of higher education to fund wrap-around services for student
parents such as case management increased access to child care well-child visits emergency grants among other services if funded this initiative creates a win-win-win scenario for our state parents win by gaining access to Supportive Services as they work toward graduation and the need for support is evident here in Minnesota we know student parents are likely to be women unmarried enrolled part-time and low income financial resources and student parent households are tight in the 2019-2020 Acad
emic Year over 50 percent of unmarried student parents who received a Minnesota state Grant had annual incomes under twenty thousand dollars Recent research found that Minnesota student parents earning minimum wage need to work about 50 hours per week in order to cover public tuition and child care costs student parents were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic as well according to FAFSA data Minnesota saw double-digit drops in the re-enrollment rate of student parents during the pandemic
years this initiative can reduce barriers helping bring parenting students back to school our colleges and universities can also win with this initiative student parents are highly motivated to succeed they typically have higher gpas than their non-parenting peers and are eager to join the workforce to support their families providing services for parenting students can help schools with retention rates and attract these high performing Scholars here in Minnesota there are about 39 000 single p
arents over 25 who have some college credit but no degree and an additional 30 000 single parents over 25 who've completed high school or a GED but have not pursued higher education with college enrollment and decline we need to find ways to engage these potential students and help them see colleges a viable option this initiative can help parents more confidently enroll in higher education with this initiative the state of Minnesota also wins by supporting student parents we invest in Greater e
conomic stability for the entire state single parents in our state who aren't calm sorry for interrupting but I have to ask you to expedite a little bit you can absolutely submit any comments in writing in addition but if it could just kind of wrap it up that'd be awesome I will thank you so much see so the Institute for Women's policy research estimates significant Returns on state Investments resulting in 2.95 returned for every dollar spent on Child Care five dollars and 13 cents returned for
every dollar spent on case management and four dollars and seventy cents returned for every dollar spent on financial aid by these estimates funding these services are worthy Investments for our state and with that I'm actually going to close written time's sake so thank you so much Cherry I appreciate it thank you committee members thank you very much Ms culmer if we could have Miss Barr and Miss Jackson please come up to the desk uh Ms Oliver yes uh chair um Lori Barr from the raise the bar F
oundation sent a video testimony because of time I will just email that to you all um eronica actually had to leave because of time she also has written testimony that I will also email to you all thank you very much Miss Oliver um Miss schmerhorn and uh Miss Hamer uh if you would please could you come up she's virtual and she's incredible uh and folks we're going to have a pretty tight limited two minutes just so you know I don't want to be mean but Sam will be mean to me and then I have to be
mean to you so if you can keep it as tight as we could that would be great so Mr Marion if you would please State your full name for the record and commence your testimony when you're ready sure um can you hear me my name is Amanda shimmerhorn I am here on behalf of men's spa or the Minnesota student parent Alliance I'm a wife a mother of four full-time uh four children excuse me a full-time college student I also um am a government relations fellow with lead MN um and I do a lot of committee wo
rk at the college I am a full-time student at msum I know you heard from a bunch of staff and faculty as a first generation non-traditional student and parent I can attest to how stressful it can be to juggle you know all of our time our schedule our work our school as well as um you know in my case three teenagers and a nine-year-old with a profound intellectual and developmental delays so um by supporting our student parents during college Minnesota does invest in not only a greater economic g
reater economic stability for their families and in turn the state as a whole um parent parental educational success equates to a better chance at educational success for their children's which is why after 15 years my last year at high school I decided to go back to school in 2019. so you know as I said you heard from a lot of faculty and staff from various M State and you know um campuses and they do recognize this as an issue um we are working with committees in msum specifically as I can att
est to find grants to help with these wraparound services but unfortunately a lot of these grants specifically state within them that they cannot be used for said wrap around services so that leaves that as not an option you know so this the the Minnesota student parent and support initiative is designed to work with the institutions to provide the supports that they would already are seeking and they just might not be able to do to these budgeting constraints as Studies have shown that students
who feel their campuses want to help them succeed in life and academically are more likely to achieve college attainments so I do hope you take this all into consideration and thank you for your time today thank you so much our next testifiers online Miss Hamer if you would please could you uh turn on your camera and mute your microphone State your full name for the record and commence your testimony when you're ready please thank you chair and thank you Senators my name is Beth Hamer and I wor
k at St Catherine University we are one of the only Minnesota private colleges that has a office that serves pregnant and parenting students we're in our 30th year and we believe that this initiative is essential to expand Services across the state in public and private colleges and universities for pregnant and parenting students as well as to help fill some gaps that exist in those of our programs at the U and here at St Cates that are serving our pregnant and parenting students already at St
Gates we have about 22 percent of our student body from associate to graduate degrees who are parenting or pregnant the vast majority are mothers and in our undergraduate college for women 75 are single parents over half of our pregnant and parenting students are low income 46 percent are first generation college students and 42 identify as um bypoc persons of color um by comparison roughly one-third of Saint Kate's overall student population falls into each of those categories so in other words
student parents at St Cates are disproportionately considered to be for marginalized groups and are unlikely to have their family's basic needs met or be well served in higher ed therefore creating a greater risk for persistence and completion so focusing on an initiative like the student parent support initiative We Believe will help with those numbers of uncompleted degree credits as well as to get more single parent students in particular into the higher ed pipeline which will be beneficial
for the long term in our state's economy thank you thanks very much Miss Hamer our next success fair is also online is Overstreet if you would please I'll meet your microphone turn on your camera State your full name for the record and commit your testimony when you're ready awesome um thank you chair fate and committee members for the opportunity to testify in support of the student parent support Initiative for the record my name is Jenny Overstreet I'm a full-time student in The Bachelor of S
ocial Work program at St Catherine University I am a mother to my four and three-year-old children and I work at a coffee shop I currently have a 3.95 GPA which I am very proud of finding the balance of raising two young children as a single parent supporting my family financially and going to school is hard I'm a part of the keys to success program at St Kate's this is a program for low-income single mothers to meet with a social worker every other week my social worker has assisted me in probl
em solving meeting my goals directed me to needed resources and helped me grow as a student mother and as a person I also get a scholarship through this program that offers me some some Financial relief so I can focus more on my kids and my studies and a little less on work I'm very grateful for this program access and success the department for student parents at St Kate's offers so many resources to Parenting students one of them being the child friendly study room this is a room in the librar
y full of toys where I can take my kids to get some studying done it gives me a safe space free of judgment where I can get schoolwork done while taking care of my kids and it makes me feel like I'm a part of my college campus access and success has weekly meetings for parenting students and puts on family-friendly events all of this makes me feel like as a mother I am a part of the community at my college these are just a few of the many parenting resources that have not only kept me in school
working towards my goal but allowed me to thrive in school because of the support and resources I receive at my school I get to show my kids that no matter what stage you are at in life if you have a dream you can pursue it thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify access fires Mr Flynn I didn't see you Marcus you here Mr Slater you would please obviously taste your full name for the record and commence testimony when you're ready sorry about that hi my name is Marcus Flynn commence you
r testimony when you're ready please Mr Flynn so my name is Marcus Flynn I'm the executive director of black men teach I want to begin by saying I think that support in this initiative would be an easy way to support teacher of color candidates in general when you're considering support and teachers of color you have to think outside of the archetypical teacher experience teachers of color tend to come to the classroom later in life and as a byproduct tend to have more life circumstances that ne
ed to be considered there's a 2016 report on the state of racial diversity and educated Workforce by the U.S department of Ed with a show where black teachers were twice as likely to come through an alternative certification program than they were a traditional teacher prep program myself this is my story I came to teaching after already receiving my master's degree in science I came to Minnesota and rolled into a master's of arts and teaching program in order to get my license here our sample o
f men concurs with this point as well of our 26 College fellows only eight are traditional students nearly half of our men work 30 hours per week or more nearly a third have kids nearly a fifth of our men have multiple jobs and so when you operate under the mindset that this is the teacher experience as we do with black men teach the idea of a teacher candidate paying tuition at school in order to work 40 hours a week unpaid and then take time away from work start to feel somewhat archaic and so
with that based on a personal experience my professional experience recommend that you all consider including hf381 in your funding package thank you thank you Mr Flynn uh Miss Dorner store near food please come to the table State your full name for the record and commence your testimony thank you thank you for being here and having me here my name is Hope dharmer Dorner I'm a faculty at the early childhood education department at Minneapolis College I'm here today to share with you the need fo
r a coordinated and publicized system to transition non-credit training and credentials into the higher education system in Minnesota this effort would allow and help all levels of professionals within the field have a systematic and transparent career lattice based upon educational attainments early childhood education is unique in the educational system is that because we have practitioners that can start in the field with no experience or educational requirements but in order to progress in t
he system they need to earn higher education credits to meet current licensing standards as well as provide high quality education experiences for children many Educators have not seen themselves as college-bound and opt to earn a non-credit credential in doing so they are seeing that they have the skills and abilities to complete College coursework we need to honor their efforts and work within the field to increase the educational levels and quality within Early Childhood programs throughout t
he state many higher education programs in the state currently do provide a pathway for credit for prior learning with the CDA credential but it is not seamless nor available at every institution I do know that at Minneapolis College and several other two-year campuses within the men State system we do that but it is not widely known for example our College received a one-time contract from mde to support the transition of CDA to college credits this last year the marketing encouraged the CDA re
cipients to complete an additional four classes or 12 credits in order to receive their early childhood education certificate we were able to recruit 32 students in five weeks and for our fall schedule and in 2020 in 2022 and another 27 in our spring recruitment efforts what was shared over and over by the CDA recipients and their employers was that they had no idea that credit for prior learning was an option at a college level they also did not know how much no much if anything about Early Chi
ldhood scholarships that could cover most if not all of the costs at a college or university this example is exactly why we need a more concerted effort to align the two and four-year State institutions to accept the CDA and potentially other credit for prior learning opportunities once that can be established we can Market as a system the clear pathway to an early childhood education award whether it be a certificate a diploma associate or Bachelor level Mr I apologize for interrupting but I'm
almost done I have like three sentences um we then can work on the professional development advisors in the state for Early Education as well as professional organizations to spread the word we are in the process of data collecting and we are seeing that many of our students that came in with that CDA are continuing on for their two-year degree this budget recommendation would benefit everyone in the state thank you very much appreciate your time certainly uh Miss McCully if you could please uh
would you come to the table stage no Miss Oliver yeah she's not testifying a Miss ant uh this interview please State your full name for the record and commence your testimony chairman can be scholarships at Normandale Community College and while I support all the recommended changes to the state grant program proposed I'd like to speak specifically to setting the eligibility to 180 credits of Grant receipt to align with the federal Pell grant program in 2122 Academic Year Normandale awarded over
3 000 students more than 3.32 million dollars in state grants which is an average of about one thousand eighty two dollars per student 42 percent of those recipients were first generation in college and 65 percent were students of color or indigenous students they these are facts about Normandale but they're probably very similar at the other state colleges and universities in our system when we count credits of enrollment or Minnesota unit count that's difficult to explain to students and make
s them excuse me makes their financial planning for their undergraduate education more difficult students are often unsure why we're requesting transcripts or cannot easily access them in 2022 for our enrolled students we had 117 who did not provide transcripts and therefore couldn't be considered for Minnesota Aid eligibility ending eligibility after the equivalent of four years of enrollment in prep impact students who are most in need of Grant resources in 2022 214 of our students who had not
exceeded the six years of Pell eligibility had more than four years of Minnesota units the average household adjusted gross income of this group was 28 000 49 of them were students of color or indigenous students and 24 were first generation in college these are the students who the state grant program is designed to serve but because of the current Minnesota unit calculation they're losing out on that average of one thousand dollars of Aid each year and this is just a subset of students who we
re actually enrolled there could be some students who didn't come to Normandale because they weren't getting that money making this change would allow students and Aid administrators to access previous state Grant usage in the Minnesota office of Higher Education Minnesota Aid software so they could make Financial plans in real time at their convenience we would save time as Aid administrators not reviewing transcripts and could provide high quality advising on FAFSA or Minnesota DREAM Act appli
cation help to all students I humbly ask that you consider making this change to increase students illability in ability to access an affordable education understand and plan their aid eligibility and reallocate financial aid administrator time to help students complete their financial aid files thank you for your time thank you Miss Oliver thank you sir I know there were a few more testifiers but we there's a lot of letters and written testimony for minitex and lrep and we know you all have a h
ard stop at five so I do want to thank everyone that did come to testify and supportive items that are in the governor's budget recommendation as you heard there's a lot of different needs out there in this budget seeks to Target those specific needs again an A plus budget affordability affordability access entertainment were the focus and I know Commissioners Olson is here with an underlying of equity across the board so thank you thank you very much Miss Oliver and a special thank you to all o
f our testifiers in the last half hour you were tremendously efficient and also understanding we appreciate both of those things as Ms Oliver did mention though we do have a hard stop at five and we did a fantastic job we're three minutes early Prada Alia with that being said um Senate file 2603 will be laid on the table to be taken up at another time there being no further business before the committee were adjourned [Music] thank you
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