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Tuesday, October 7, 2008

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

1 comment:

  1. WOW, all of the candidates simply advocate a hand out rather than getting at the root of the problem. Until the state gets its act together and fixes the tax/incentive system for tech businesses the graduates will keep leaving because there is not demand for their degrees.

    These people honestly believe that if we magically wipe student debt graduates would stay here and work at subway/holiday inn/MDL.

    Hey, while we're at it, let's start buying up houses that are way overpriced, because if we don't their value will go down again!

    ReplyDelete

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