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WICHE: North Dakota bucks the demographic decline as federal Higher Ed changes and distance‑education pricing pose questions for states
Summary
WICHE officials told lawmakers that North Dakota is projected to see a roughly 19% increase in high‑school graduates across the next decade and that recent federal changes to the Higher Education Act could reshape state planning. WCET, WICHE’s digital‑learning arm, reported that institutions often do not price distance courses in relation to their production costs, and that fees and regulatory work can make online offerings more expensive than commonly assumed.
Patrick Lane, vice president for policy analysis and research at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), told the Interim Higher Education Institutions Committee that North Dakota’s incoming pipeline looks very different from most U.S. states: projections show about a 19% increase in the number of high‑school graduates over the next decade before later settling into a slight decline.
Lane said that context matters for state higher‑education planning and that North Dakota’s stronger projections are “a very big deal” for campus planning. He reviewed regional tuition and aid metrics: two‑year public tuition and fees in North Dakota were about $5,900 for 2024–25 and four‑year public tuition roughly $10,400–$10,500, while state appropriations per FTE for North Dakota institutions were about $10,300 compared with an average student share of about $9,600.
Lane outlined recent federal legislative changes that states and institutions are watching closely. The reconciliation package includes new graduate loan limits (a $200,000 cap for…
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