Just got this from the state Office of Higher Education: OHE STAFF RETURN TO WORK IN TIME FOR PEAK STATE GRANT SEASON Dr. Sheila Wright, Director of the Office of Higher Education (OHE), welcomed the return of all OHE employees back to work on Thursday and said that, for thousands of Minnesota students, the government Read more →
MPR News Intelligence on higher education
Tag: state shutdown
I’m having to go through all the bills coming out of the shutdown talks, so I can’t get too deep into the higher-ed bill at the moment. MPR colleague Tim Post should be doing more reporting on this later on, but here’s a quick initial look at the highlights: Total funding: $2.6 billion How it Read more →

With MPR’s Tom Scheck: The husband of Minnesota Senate President Michelle Fischbach is asking his organization’s constituents to pressure legislators to reinstate one or more pro-life measures stripped by Gov. Mark Dayton as a condition of the budgetary framework agreement reached last week. Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a group opposed to legalized abortion, sent Read more →
MPR’s Catharine Richert reports that Gov. Mark Dayton has announced he’ll agree to a GOP pre-shutdown offer to end the current shutdown stalemate: Dayton set three conditions. He wants the GOP to drop policy changes included in earlier proposals, such as a ban on taxpayer funded abortion and a ban on cloning. He also wants Read more →
Yesterday afternoon I posted that the University of Minnesota is offering voluntary leaves of absence to help cope with the state shutdown. I called in for details, and today the U’s VP for human resources, Kathy Brown, ended up talking to MPR colleague Tim Post. This is apparently a narrowly tailored program designed to help Read more →
So, irony of ironies, Republican legislators (who voted to pay themselves for work they have not accomplished) are making it impossible for students to get scholarship money which they have earned through academic achievement, military service, or in residual compensation from having been dispossessed from their land in the case of Native people. But students Read more →
The University and Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system will remain open if there’s a shutdown, but Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services is worried a lingering shutdown could have consequences for the state’s two public higher ed institutions. Here’s the full statement from Standard and Poor’s:
This news release just came in from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities headquarters in St. Paul. Layoff notices to more than 6,000 employees of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system are being rescinded and classes will continue July 1 in the event of a government shutdown, officials said Monday.
I must admit, I hadn’t thought of this one as a shutdown concern: KVSC radio reports: Student workers and their supervisors are being advised to swiftly enroll in student payroll direct deposit as a potential Minnesota government shutdown approaches. The head of student payroll at St. Cloud State University, Lisa Pesta, sent an email strongly Read more →
Fine, so Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system schools will stay open during a potential government shutdown if a court approves Gov. Dayton’s decision to grant it access to its state-held reserves. But what about State Grant funding, work-study programs , child care grants and the various financial programs run through the state Office of Read more →