North Dakota lawmakers dig into subsidizing online college classes for out-of-state students

BISMARCK — Representatives of North Dakota colleges on Wednesday, Nov. 12, espoused the value of offering online classes, even to students who may never set foot in the state.

State lawmakers have been trying to assess the value of providing state funding to online programs serving students outside North Dakota and neighboring states.

“We are still highly subsidizing,” Sen. Ron Sorvaag, R-Fargo, chair of the Higher Education Funding Review Committee, said of online classes. “We still need to understand, are we getting a bang for the buck?”

A

University System presentation

said the state is spending about $22 million on online courses for out-of-state students for the most recent two-year budget cycle. That doesn’t include online students from Minnesota, Montana or South Dakota.

Sorvaag said legislators aren’t opposed to online education, but want to make sure the dollars that go to online courses through the state’s higher education funding formula are being used wisely.

The committee will consider possible changes to the funding formula that could be made in the 2027 legislative session.

Much of the discussion centered on out-of-state, online students. In 2021-23, the University System had nearly 9,000 out-of-state, online students who were not residents of neighboring states, according to figures presented to the committee. Total enrollment for those two years was more than 77,000 students.

Karla Mongeon-Stewart, vice president of finance for the University of North Dakota, addressed value by saying that UND students in that category contribute $2.09 in tuition and fees for every $1 of state funding.

She said online students pay the same fees as on-campus students that help maintain buildings, pay down debt and keep fees for things such as recreation facilities low for on-campus students.

She said revenue from online students has helped keep UND financially stable at times when on-campus enrollment has waned.

Mongeon-Stewart also highlighted how UND has built a reputation as a credible online institution that reflects positively on the whole state. She gave examples of Sara Sabry, an Egyptian astronaut, and Paige Jones, an Olympic-level skier from Utah, who chose to take classes from UND.

She said UND also serves the military community and the two Air Force bases in the state. People living at a base may start their education in North Dakota but end up being deployed or transferred to another state.

UND and Bismarck State College lead the North Dakota University System in online credit hours.

UND’s most popular courses are nursing and engineering. Mongeon-Stewart said the additional enrollment from online students helps diversify the engineering course offerings the university can offer.

Bismarck State’s most popular classes are related to the energy industry.

Dan Leingang, interim president of Bismarck State College, said some of those students may not be seeking a degree but needing training to succeed with their current employer.

His

written testimony

included letters of support from Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, and Jonathan Fortner, president and CEO of the Lignite Energy Council.

In other higher education meetings this fall, lawmakers have shown frustration with a lack of data on where out-of-state online students are living.

Mongeon-Stewart said there has not been consistency in how North Dakota’s 11 public colleges and universities track out-of-state online students, but the institutions are working on a uniform model.

She said she hopes it will include information such as a North Dakota affiliation, like being a graduate from a high school or college in the state.

“We are going to work really hard to do a better job in the future of giving you what you need,” she told lawmakers.

Sorvaag said he was grateful for the presentations on out-of-state online students, but added that the Legislature must still decide if subsidizing those courses is the best use of state money. Lawmakers could decide state dollars are better spent in other areas, such as supporting scholarships for in-state students, he said.

The question is part of a larger potential overhaul of the state’s funding formula for higher education.

“The more we dig into this, the more we understand how complicated this is,” Sorvaag said.