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Removing higher education mandates

Published (3/18/2011)
By Mike Cook
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Colleges might be able to again market credit cards to their students.

The provision was one of three mandate reliefs remaining in a bill held over by the House Higher Education Policy and Finance Committee March 15 for possible omnibus bill inclusion.

“We’ve been looking around this legislative session for relief from mandates, and I think these were a few ideas I have found by looking through the statutes, and I find are probably unnecessary at this time,” said Rep. Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls).

Sponsored by Nornes, HF849, which has no Senate companion, would also remove requirements that:

• a public college or University of Minnesota bookstore must, to the extent possible, only sell apparel manufactured in the United States; and

• public employers must purchase or require employees to furnish uniform or protective accessories made in this country.

A 2007 law made it illegal for colleges and universities to “enter into any agreement to market credit cards to undergraduate students at a postsecondary educational institution.”

“Students have the right to make financial decisions on their own, and are already inundated with credit card offers,” Nornes said. “To deny the institutions the possibility of some income from those agreements I guess would only be harmful to those schools.”

Nornes wanted to eliminate a mandate that postsecondary institutions give students notice that criminal arrests, charges or convictions in certain cases could limit them for certain occupations and financial aid. After about 30 minutes of debate, he accepted an amendment from Rep. Kim Norton (DFL-Rochester) to remove the provision.

Norton told of a collegian who called her after being told that the ability to do a job in the field she was pursuing might be affected by a DUI. “It was helpful to the student to think about it.”

“You could affect people’s lives forever,” added Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia). “It’s a mandate that I haven’t heard many complaints about, but I’ve heard many praises from folks that were warned ahead of time not to go into the field that they were going into.”

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