Today in History revisits the June 14, 1992 edition of the Obituary and highlights a story about a tuition freeze at the University of Minnesota Crookston, making it the cheapest in the University of Minnesota system at the time. Continue reading for more details.
University of Minnesota-Crookston’s tuition now is cheapest in University of Minnesota system
CROOKSTON — A tuition freeze announced by the University of Minnesota would make the Crookston campus the cheapest in the system.
The freeze announced Friday would make the two-year technical school more competitive with Minnesota’s other public schools, which are raising their rates, and keep Crookston’s price in line with North Dakota’s two universities on the nearby border.
Rates elsewhere in the state university system will rise by about 11 percent. UND, 25 miles away in Grand Forks, and North Dakota State University, about 75 miles away in Fargo, have frozen tuition for the 1992–93 academic year.
North Dakota’s chancellor of higher education, Douglas Treadway, said that Minnesotans are increasingly enrolling in North Dakota schools, partly because of tuition increases at home. Similarly, more North Dakotans — 400 to 500 next year, he said — are expected to stay in their state.
For the past year, about 5,600 Minnesotans are in North Dakota schools and 4,300 North Dakotans are in Minnesota, Treadway said.
Tuition at Crookston has been higher than that at UND and NDSU — $2,475 vs. $1,860. But when students cross the state line in either direction, they pay a 25 percent surcharge.
A prospective student from Minnesota would pay $2,475 at Crookston or $2,325 at UND. But a North Dakotan looks at a big difference: $3,094 at Crookston vs. $1,860 at UND or NDSU.
Crookston’s campus, with about 1,300 students, has been losing enrollment of full-time students who have become increasingly interested in four-year degrees. And the university has been moving away from two-year programs, closing the two-year agricultural campus at Waseca this month.
Faced with a choice of closing the Crookston campus or expanding it, university administrators announced plans last month to expand it to a four-year institution emphasizing agriculture, natural resources, small business and hospitality. That is expected to be approved by the Board of Regents.
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