Question 5: Student Loans

Still hard to pay off student loans on SD wages after college: How would you invest in higher education graduates to keep them here?

Jerry Johnson:

• DSU does a good job on that, offering scholarships to cut the tuition burden up front
• Heartland Technology Center in Madison good type of project
• look for grants, private donors
  

Gerry Lange:

• Remember GI Bill? It paid back $9 for every $1 invested.
  
• Finland and Europe realize that; we're very slow
• We put taxpayers first, fail to prioritize education
• We are slipping as a state and a nation on education; we've got to invest
• My home state of North Dakota is doing very well on this issue; we are lagging

Russell Olson:

• spoke at Sanborn Central graduation in May, awarded Dakota Corps scholarship to gal who got 4.2 GPA (glad parents didn't realize money like that was available, since I could hardly manage a 3.0)
• Give scholarships to students who promise to stay in SD
• need to maintain cash flow for programs we have

Scott Parsley:

• Remember the Mickelson Scholarship? We got more kids qualifying for it than we planned for, so we bailed out. Oops.
• We have lots of money in trust funds and other state savings accounts: $1.5 billion! There are some opportunities there!
• Why leave all that money in the bank? Tobacco fund has grown $100M since it started.
• More important to grow students than grow funds.
• revive scholarships we've moved from, enhance the ones we have
  

Mitch Fargen:

• Dakota Corps scholarship should be expanded to other workforce areas
• Opportunity Scholarship losing value, needs to be increased to keep up with inflation
• recruit more students to come back: Opporuntity Scholarship not available to kids who might go out of state then want to transfer back in
  

Patricia Stricherz:

• Other neighboring states face same problem
• resources are there
• we'd like to keep the kids here, but our kids need to be free to go where they wish and find themselves