Star Tribune
South Dakota is ending college tuition reciprocity with Minnesota.
South Dakota officials are ending their longstanding reciprocity agreement and dropping tuition rates for Minnesota residents as the competition to recruit college students intensifies.
The change means Minnesota residents could pay less than they had expected to attend a public university in South Dakota. Meanwhile, some South Dakota residents could pay more to attend Minnesota schools in the future, though school leaders say they’ll honor current rates for students studying here now.
“The decision to get rid of the reciprocity agreement was actually so we could reduce the cost and make college more affordable to Minnesota students looking to come to South Dakota,” said Nathan Lukkes, executive director of the South Dakota Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s six public universities.
Since 1978, the two states have had some form of reciprocity agreement that allows residents in both states to receive discounted tuition at public schools, compared with people coming there from other parts of the nation. In recent years, about 3,400 Minnesotans chose to attend college in South Dakota, while nearly 1,000 South Dakota residents attended Minnesota schools. Students paid the higher of the two states’ resident-tuition rates, which varied based on the type of institution they were attending.
But with college enrollments across the country declining and the number of high school graduates expected to drop in coming years, competition to recruit students is escalating. Colleges along Minnesota’s western border have launched programs to retain students and countered with a new free tuition program in Minnesota. North Dakota State University announced last year that it would try to match Minnesota’s program.
Minnesota lawmakers last year created the North Star Promise program, which offers free tuition and fees to Minnesota residents who attend a public school in the state and whose families make less than $80,000. Lawmakers said, among other things, that they wanted to encourage students to stay in Minnesota.
“Certainly, when Minnesota announced the North Star Promise program last year, it caused the [South Dakota] Board of Regents to re-evaluate the landscape and make sure we were maintaining our competitive advantage,” Lukkes said.
Minnesota residents at public universities in South Dakota paid an average of $10,780 in tuition and fees under the reciprocity agreement. With the new rates, they’ll pay about $1,400 less, Lukkes said.
Minnesota’s two public higher education systems set their own tuition rates. At the University of Minnesota’s flagship Twin Cities campus, undergraduate tuition runs about $14,500 per year for residents and about $34,400 for non-residents.
Interim U President Jeff Ettinger said in a regents meeting last week that “we are committed to ensuring that current South Dakota students will have their reciprocity rates continue through their graduation.” He said they’ll also offer the rate to South Dakota students who applied to start their undergraduate studies at the U this fall “because this news comes so late in the admissions cycle.”
The U is forming work groups to decide how it should approach future years and rates for graduate and professional programs.
Leaders with the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities said most of their 33 schools charge the same for residents and non-residents.
“Existing South Dakota students will be grandfathered into the lower rate if they are getting one, and other students may be granted the Minnesota resident rate based on other considerations,” Bill Maki, vice chancellor for finance and facilities, said in a statement.
Leaders from higher education institutions in both states said students with questions about their college costs should contact the financial aid offices at the institutions they’re attending or where they have applied.
“You may hear news like this and it creates a panic,” said Keith Hovis, spokesperson for the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. But students might find that “the impact is minimal or there are additional resources available to you.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
