BISMARCK, N.D. (PRAIRIE PUBLIC RADIO) – North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott is proposing a “Higher Education Stabilization Fund,” similar to the K-12 Stabilization fund.
The fund would help during budget downturns. It would be funded through the proceeds from the Legacy Fund.
Hagerott said during the budget cuts the Legislature enacted in 2017, the University System lost a lot of good faculty. He said professors and students are very mobile and if higher education can’t be stabilized, “it’s classic, they get poached.”
Hagerott said while attending a conference he heard a research vice president at a big university on the coast who joked about how they all see the midwest and the Dakota’s at the “candy jar” to pick the best professors.
Hagerott is also proposing a “Higher Education Innovation Fund,” that would help diversify the state’s economy.