The First Domino Has Fallen

[SW_Mustang]

Oh, and Morris also had an ag high school.

https://morris.umn.edu/about/unique-campus-history

We've actually studied the Morris campus in class before for it's historical significance, but I don't believe I was aware it had an ag school. That's kind of neat.

I've never been to UMC but I've always thought of them as similar schools. With BSU and MSUM servicing northern Minnesota (and UMD to some extent), it seems weird to shoehorn such a small school into that landscape. The U will do what it wants though.

[laker]

Oh, and Morris also had an ag high school.

https://morris.umn.edu/about/unique-campus-history

[laker]

Rochester is weird. Depending on how it's counted - they have six campuses. It's more like a conglomerate of bits and pieces of other schools. Combined, they don't offer very much to the traditional student. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons for that - but it still strikes me as weird. Every campus in Rochester and Mankato combined offer less ag education than SMSU does, so I think a dedicated two-year ag school in Waseca would have been fine.

I agree on Crookston. If I had a say - UMC and UMM would combine into one school in Morris. The former UMC campus would either be used as an agriculture research facility, or at the very most a two-year agriculture senior college, or some combination of the two. Crookston is too small of a city to support a traditional public university, especially given the distance to Bemidji and F-M. They are wasting their resources offering English and Accounting degrees when they should be specializing in Ag. It sounds crazy - but UMR only offers health degrees, so I think a special-focus institution would work. They could also sign articulation agreements with Minnesota State community colleges for the liberal arts component. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this would mean Crookston would lose it's athletic department as well.

I was told once that Glencoe (if I am correct) was once considered for the agriculture school. Now, I'm not sure if that's true - and I also don't know if they were referring to the University of Minnesota, or Minnesota A&M, but that's what I was told. The U runs a research facility in Lamberton though.

When I was a junior the FFA regional soil judging contest was at the Lamberton station. We stopped at the Dairy Queen at Sanborn Corners (HWY 71 & 14) and had wild blackberry sundaes. Delicious. Anyway we qualified for state. The state contest was in Roseville. I couldn't figure out where the A layer ended and the B began, same with the B layer and the C layer. I just guessed. Our team was like second from the bottom. Turned out there was NO B layer! Odd place to have the contest, we didn't have any soil like that around us.

You were about Glencoe. With the formerly largest pea packing plant in the world there, along with corn packing, it would have been a good location.

1865- State legislature agreed that the land grant should be used for agriculture school in Glencoe, Minn.

[SW_Mustang]

It was a good school- there had been an ag high school there (and at Crookston) so a junior college was a good step up. But think of the location between Mankato and Rochester and it really wasn't needed there, especially with a poorly located IMO ag school in St Paul (should have been outstate). So yes, they turned it into a prison. UMC never should have been turned into a four year school but some ag bigwig in Washington pushed for it. Well, Grand Forks is what, 20 miles away with reciprocity. You have Moorhead with NDSU across the river, and Bemidji in the other direction. Plus some other two year schools. Overreach.

Rochester is weird. Depending on how it's counted - they have six campuses. It's more like a conglomerate of bits and pieces of other schools. Combined, they don't offer very much to the traditional student. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons for that - but it still strikes me as weird. Every campus in Rochester and Mankato combined offer less ag education than SMSU does, so I think a dedicated two-year ag school in Waseca would have been fine.

I agree on Crookston. If I had a say - UMC and UMM would combine into one school in Morris. The former UMC campus would either be used as an agriculture research facility, or at the very most a two-year agriculture senior college, or some combination of the two. Crookston is too small of a city to support a traditional public university, especially given the distance to Bemidji and F-M. They are wasting their resources offering English and Accounting degrees when they should be specializing in Ag. It sounds crazy - but UMR only offers health degrees, so I think a special-focus institution would work. They could also sign articulation agreements with Minnesota State community colleges for the liberal arts component. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this would mean Crookston would lose it's athletic department as well.

I was told once that Glencoe (if I am correct) was once considered for the agriculture school. Now, I'm not sure if that's true - and I also don't know if they were referring to the University of Minnesota, or Minnesota A&M, but that's what I was told. The U runs a research facility in Lamberton though.

[laker]

[laker]

I didn't know that about Crookston. It's probably the school I know the least about.

I found an article from 1991 about UMW - the townsfolk were not happy when they left because it gave them a sense of community pride, and a higher % of the population who was educated.

It was a good school- there had been an ag high school there (and at Crookston) so a junior college was a good step up. But think of the location between Mankato and Rochester and it really wasn't needed there, especially with a poorly located IMO ag school in St Paul (should have been outstate). So yes, they turned it into a prison. UMC never should have been turned into a four year school but some ag bigwig in Washington pushed for it. Well, Grand Forks is what, 20 miles away with reciprocity. You have Moorhead with NDSU across the river, and Bemidji in the other direction. Plus some other two year schools. Overreach.

[SW_Mustang]

Waseca ran from the fall of 1971 to 1992. The Rams were maroon and gold (big surprise). If I remember right their football coach was named Don Collins (?) who invited me to play football there. A friend of mine from Hector went there and was named captain. I played against him when they came up to Willmar. I know that they went winless and we only lost to Rochester. They had an ag school- my best friend graduated from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univer...nnesota_Waseca

Crookston was a two year school too. They were the Trojans but changed when they went four year in 1993. I remember seeing a kid from Buffalo Lake wear a UMC jacket to church- he played QB up there.

I didn't know that about Crookston. It's probably the school I know the least about.

I found an article from 1991 about UMW - the townsfolk were not happy when they left because it gave them a sense of community pride, and a higher % of the population who was educated.

[laker]

I didn't know this until today - but UW was running a bunch of two year colleges. It looks like they only awarded AA degrees, but they were fully autonomous campuses with their own administrations and everything. I think the goal was for them to reach rural and non-traditional students. The tuition was significantly cheaper too. It's a very interesting philosophy - the schools were independent of the universities, but served solely as a feeder system for them as well. I thought it was kind of neat.

The reason they all made the list was because UW scrapped that idea and turned them all into satellite campuses for the universities. The University of Wisconsin-Waukesha became the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha. Big difference.

The U of M also had a two-year college once, University of Minnesota-Waseca. It only lasted for about 20 years before it fell victim to the bureaucracy. Seems like the townsfolk were not happy that it closed - even worse, the campus is now a prison. It would be cool if the U could snag one of the abundant Minnesota State colleges and run it - I'd totally sign up for classes just to say I went to the U!

Waseca ran from the fall of 1971 to 1992. The Rams were maroon and gold (big surprise). If I remember right their football coach was named Don Collins (?) who invited me to play football there. A friend of mine from Hector went there and was named captain. I played against him when they came up to Willmar. I know that they went winless and we only lost to Rochester. They had an ag school- my best friend graduated from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univer...nnesota_Waseca

Crookston was a two year school too. They were the Trojans but changed when they went four year in 1993. I remember seeing a kid from Buffalo Lake wear a UMC jacket to church- he played QB up there.

[SW_Mustang]

Too much duplication of effort. I think in Wisconsin those D3 schools in the UW system tend to specialize. With distance learning some of those places will get shut down.

I didn't know this until today - but UW was running a bunch of two year colleges. It looks like they only awarded AA degrees, but they were fully autonomous campuses with their own administrations and everything. I think the goal was for them to reach rural and non-traditional students. The tuition was significantly cheaper too. It's a very interesting philosophy - the schools were independent of the universities, but served solely as a feeder system for them as well. I thought it was kind of neat.

The reason they all made the list was because UW scrapped that idea and turned them all into satellite campuses for the universities. The University of Wisconsin-Waukesha became the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha. Big difference.

The U of M also had a two-year college once, University of Minnesota-Waseca. It only lasted for about 20 years before it fell victim to the bureaucracy. Seems like the townsfolk were not happy that it closed - even worse, the campus is now a prison. It would be cool if the U could snag one of the abundant Minnesota State colleges and run it - I'd totally sign up for classes just to say I went to the U!

[laker]

Granite Falls, Canby, and Jackson all got community colleges. It's not working out from what I've been told.

Rochester got RCTC and UMR - which is less than what Bemidji and Duluth have. Just a weird anomaly.

Too much duplication of effort. I think in Wisconsin those D3 schools in the UW system tend to specialize. With distance learning some of those places will get shut down.

[SW_Mustang]

Minnesota has a very extensive number of community colleges which were merged with the technical schools. At one time the philosophy was to have a school (or a branch) within a 35 mile circle. Of course that wasn't meant for the northern part of the state but if you drew a circle on a map around each of these public schools you would see that it covered quite an area.

There are two public school systems in MN. The University of Minnesota, with Twin Cities being the only D1 school in the state, Duluth and Crookston D2 and Morris D3. Then you have the state system which would include D2 Bemidji, Mankato, Moorhead, St Cloud, Southwest, Winona. Concordia St Paul is private but also D2. The two year/technical schools are in this system.

The private schools are basically two conferences- the MIAC with traditionally bigger and more athletic accomplishments and the UMAC. St Thomas, who is trying to move up to D1, and St John's are the most well know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_Minnesota

Granite Falls, Canby, and Jackson all got community colleges. It's not working out from what I've been told.

Rochester got RCTC and UMR - which is less than what Bemidji and Duluth have. Just a weird anomaly.

[SW_Mustang]

Very informative site, thanks. Curious how Minn. is able to sustain a system of apparently 30 some state colleges with a population of only 5.7M. Are they the cause of what appears to be the demise of small liberal arts institutions in the state?

I should clarify, we aren't seeing a ton of closures in Minnesota just yet. But yes - our system is wildly unsustainable. The trends I'm seeing are really just in the Northeast, but it's starting to affect the Mid-South as well as the Northwest. I think our time will come, and coronavirus may very well speed things up. I'll give you the details but the tl;dr is something has to change kinda quickly.

We have a total of 43 public colleges operating 60+ campuses, depending on what's counted as a "campus." 11 of which are universities. The other 32 colleges are community, technical, and tribal schools, all but one of which are run by Minnesota State. As I understand it, a lot of these schools were vocational schools run by their respective districts. The demand for higher education grew, so a lot of them started offering 2-year degrees. Through consolidation and legislation in the mid-1990s, a lot of them were transformed into what we have today.

On the private side, Wikipedia lists us as having 31 private non-profit institutions, which may or may not be correct. That number doesn't include other campuses, however - just the schools themselves. So in total - there are close too, or over, 100 physical locations to get a degree from a non-profit institution in Minnesota.

The biggest problem I see - the bulk of our schools are academically homogenized. It's the same degrees with the same quality of instruction. If you're not attending the University of Minnesota, Mayo, or Macalester, odds are that degree program is the same at just about every school. There are very few actual research opportunities outside of the U's flagship campus, for one example. This means social hierarchy and party culture dominates which schools get the students - not unlike any other state, but I think it runs rampant here. St. John's and St. Thomas are really unremarkable universities - they mean nothing to the greater world of higher ed like Harvard or Yale does, yet they are at the top of the food chain despite having no unique qualities to them.

Lastly, one issue not a lot of people seem to notice - that count I posted of 74 schools, that's what's in the physical borders of Minnesota. That doesn't count the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, or any of the smaller schools on the Dakota border.These schools are very popular with students who want the "big" school experience, but couldn't get into the U. Each of them are bigger than our second largest university, and because of reciprocity agreements the in-state tuition applies to Minnesota residents. This exists to an extent on the Wisconsin side as well, but it's not nearly as big of a student-stealer as the Dakotas are. There might be more Bison fans in Minnesota than there are in North Dakota.

I can't speak for every school, but SMSU relies heavily on international and non-traditional students, especially the online ones. We also rely heavily on our athletic department to bring in students. I don't know how some of these schools are still operating, maybe they have really dedicated alumni bases. Who knows.

[laker]

Very informative site, thanks. Curious how Minn. is able to sustain a system of apparently 30 some state colleges with a population of only 5.7M. Are they the cause of what appears to be the demise of small liberal arts institutions in the state?

Minnesota has a very extensive number of community colleges which were merged with the technical schools. At one time the philosophy was to have a school (or a branch) within a 35 mile circle. Of course that wasn't meant for the northern part of the state but if you drew a circle on a map around each of these public schools you would see that it covered quite an area.

There are two public school systems in MN. The University of Minnesota, with Twin Cities being the only D1 school in the state, Duluth and Crookston D2 and Morris D3. Then you have the state system which would include D2 Bemidji, Mankato, Moorhead, St Cloud, Southwest, Winona. Concordia St Paul is private but also D2. The two year/technical schools are in this system.

The private schools are basically two conferences- the MIAC with traditionally bigger and more athletic accomplishments and the UMAC. St Thomas, who is trying to move up to D1, and St John's are the most well know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_Minnesota

[SW_Mustang]

Four colleges closing in one year in a state with a small population like Vermont is very depressing. Thanks for sharing the article though, it's good to stay informed.

You are very welcome!

Lyndon State and Johnson State merged under one administrative umbrella in 2018 to form Northern Vermont University. Each campus is semi-autonomous - for example, they both retained their athletic departments. If NVU was to close as well as the tech school, it would be like losing seven schools in two years. Technically, since LSC and JSC no longer exist, they'd have lost nine schools in five years. That's pretty bonkers.

[crixus]

According to this article, Vermont had 4* colleges close in 2019. The intellectual entity that is Marlboro College will merge with Emerson College in Boston, but the physical campus in Vermont was recently listed for sale.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/...-economy-slips

The trend I've noticed with schools closing is they seem to be small, private, liberal arts colleges that are unremarkable academically. We've got about 50 of those in Minnesota, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens here in the next 10 years.

EDIT: For those interested, I found this tracker that lists school closures and mergers. They're pretty loose with the terms though. Doesn't look like Henderson State is going away even though this list makes it seem like they are.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/t...dation/539961/

Four colleges closing in one year in a state with a small population like Vermont is very depressing. Thanks for sharing the article though, it's good to stay informed.