Minnesota State leaders outline budget riders, student support and workforce investments to House higher-education committee

Officials from Minnesota State presented an overview of system finances and several budget riders to the House Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee on March 6, describing student-affordability programs, student-support services and workforce investments enacted in 2023 session law and how the system is using recent appropriations.

George Sowell, board chair of Minnesota State, opened the presentation and described the scope of the system: 26 community and technical colleges, seven state universities and roughly 270,000 students per year. Vice chancellors and associate vice chancellors then described a set of riders and related initiatives funded under Session Law 2023, Chapter 41.

Textbook affordability: Kim Lynch, Associate Vice Chancellor for Educational Development and Technology, reviewed the Z-degree (zero-textbook-cost) program. She said prior appropriations expanded free course materials and that a proposed base appropriation would be $1,000,000 annually to support campuses adopting and sustaining zero-textbook-degree pathways. Lynch said the program has produced tracked savings (systemwide reported savings of about $3.1 million in the most recent academic year and an aggregate of roughly $12.6 million) and that preliminary analyses show students in Z-degree courses have higher course-success rates. Lynch said additional base funding would be used to expand implementations, develop zero-textbook transfer pathways (notably for…