Perspective on Priorities

By Kevin Black and Shawn Affolter
Contributing Writers

The North Dakota House of Representatives’ message to NDSU students has been heard loud and clear. We hope those 59 legislators whose vote will adversely affect our fellow students are listening, for we would like to offer a reply.

In light of legislative testimony, we question the notion that funding increases must mean furthering reckless behavior, or that funding cuts will guarantee fiscal responsibility and accountability. Indeed, there are many more dimensions to this biennial story.

While the Legislature is prepared to spend millions of dollars to defend the Fighting Sioux nickname in court, representatives are still willing to decrease equity, tuition affordability and performance-based funding by even greater amounts. These curious priorities will disproportionately affect the quality of education our fellow NDSU students receive.

At NDSU, 95 percent of students attend classes on campus, the highest face-to-face ratio of any institution in the state. Between general fund appropriations and net tuition revenue, the amount spent toward educating a single NDSU student only totaled $10,695 – far less than the university system average of $12,158 during the 2007-2009 biennium. (NDUS 2010 Accountability Measures Report)

These facts coupled with NDSU’s growing enrollment to 14,407 students – a 49% increase over the past 11 years – have left our university with serious growing pains. Noticeably, students feel these pains by widening student-to-faculty ratios, lack of adequate lab and classroom space to enhance academic programs and aging academic facilities.

For example, we recognize laudable one-time expenses that are worthy of the state’s investment, including upgrades to the Main Library, Geosciences, Ehly, Ladd and Dunbar Halls, which are educational buildings that have been overlooked for decades.

Nonetheless, we believe both the state and students have an ownership in higher education. While students at other institutions have called for a complete freeze in tuition, the NDSU Student Senate and the North Dakota Student Association voted in favor of a 2.5% cap on tuition increases over the next biennium. This affirms a shared sentiment: students desire the best quality education, not just the cheapest one.

In stark contrast to others states, North Dakota is in the position to elevate its flagship institutions. At a time when the state can invest in a workforce that will broaden the tax base, diversify our economy and attract the brightest minds, why not appropriate NDSU the sufficient resources to do so?

Representative Bob Skarpol (R-Tioga) is on record calling for change in the university system. If the change Skarpol and like-minded legislators are seeking is to reform higher education, then provide benchmarks, mandate transparency, reward performance, as well as contribute to meaningful and timely reforms of the university system.

If the Legislature has a goal to effectively invest our state’s resources, then we can think of no better way than by equipping NDSU students to receive, and fully funding our institution to provide, the best education around.

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[Editor’s Note: Kevin Black and Shawn Affolter are the NDSU Student Body President and Vice President]