St. Paul, Minn. - Today, the Minnesota House considered the Republican majority’s combined E-12 and Higher Education supplemental budget bill. On the E-12 side, other than some money toward school safety measures, the bill delivers little investment to Minnesota classrooms, fails to adequately address school districts’ special education costs, and doesn’t extend voluntary pre-K programming beyond next school year. On the higher education portion, the bill contains a meager $500,000 of one-time funding for the University of Minnesota.
State Rep. Jen Schultz (DFL – Duluth), a member of the House Higher Education Committee, released the following statement:
“Strong education opportunities, from those for our youngest learners to those in college, have been a big part of our state’s success. But once again, the Republicans in this House Majority have failed to make the investments necessary to ensure this success can continue into the future.
“In particular, the University of Minnesota system is nearly ignored by this bill. This is a crown-jewel for our state, but the ability to attend due to increasing tuition continues to slip away for many potential students, simply because the Republicans in charge of the Legislature choose to prioritize tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. Minnesota State campuses face a $34 million structural deficit in 2019 and expect to issue layoffs and close programs. Ultimately, a lack of higher education funding hurts students and our state. It’s unacceptable that nothing is being done to lower the cost of a degree, meanwhile quality will suffer and more and more young people and their families will be buried under mountains of debt. We have to do better.”