Minnesota has a reputation for being a great place to raise a family. This past session, legislators approved historic spending for community safety, transportation, health and human services, housing, homelessness, taxation and K-12 education. Whether those efforts will pay enhanced dividends remains to be seen, but there is no doubt a concentrated financial commitment was directed to higher education.

Our legislature appropriated $650 million to all components of public higher education for fiscal year 2024-25. After paying for operations and maintenance costs, administration and scholarships through the higher education office, the University of Minnesota received an additional $125 million and Minnesota State’s seven universities and 47 community and technical colleges received $292 million. These dollars are an investment in our economic future, even though both high school graduation numbers and college and university enrollments have been slowly decreasing over the past decade.

  
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