In their ongoing commitment to deterring low-income students from seeking a college education and developing the critical thinking skills that would lead them to critique South Dakota’s one-party regime, Republicans last week killed Senate Bill 72, the Joint Appropriations Committee’s proposal to spend two million dollars on needs-based scholarships to South Dakota’s universities. On Wednesday, March 4, House Appropriations heard the Regents, three university presidents, several students, the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, Avera Health, Rapid City’s economic developers, and a couple other folks testify in favor of investing in the “Dakota’s Promise Fund” and joining 49 other states in granting needs-based scholarships. They heard no testimony against SB 72. But Rep. Taffy Howard said South Dakota already offers enough scholarships, and kids who can’t get scholarships can join ROTC like her son did. Rep. Howard said kids just need to study harder in high school: “There’s nothing about being not well off or poor in some cases that prevents you from working hard and earning those merit-based scholarships that are out there.”
Other Republicans on the committee said the budget projections have tightened since the Senate voted 32–2 on February 25 to fund these scholarships. The eight Republicans voted en banc, against the sole Democratic voice, Rep. Michael Saba, to kill SB 72.
The next day, the same House Appropriators voted to punish the kids who take Rep. Howard’s advice and work harder in high school by making their dual-enrollment courses cost more. They took Senator Brock Greenfield’s reasonable Senate Bill 144, a minor accountability measure that would prohibit high schoolers who dual-enroll in a college course but fail from taking advantage of the program again, and amended it to cut the state’s support of dual-enrollment courses from 66.7% to 50%. Senator Greenfield saw this trick coming and amended his one-strike rule into his other dual-enrollment bill, SB 142 (clever fellow!) and thus urged House Approps to simply drop SB 142. But the education-cutting Republicans majority wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Democrat Saba was gone for this amendment change, and Republicans Bartels, Hunhoff, and Koth voted against it, but the Republican majority said sure, let’s charge ambitious high school students even more to get a jump on their university careers. The full House will thus have on its well-stacked plate tomorrow one more way to tell South Dakota’s kids that we don’t really think their education deserves our investment.
I’d urge those ignored kids to rally at the polls this November and vote these opponents of higher education out of office… but I worry that the smartest among them will have voted with their feet and be studying in Fargo, Lincoln, Minneapolis, Missoula….
When it comes to plain old hard-hearted meanness, it’s hard to beat the SDGOP.
College is for the rich kids. The poor kids are the ones who are supposed to work in hog confinements, processing plants, and other $12 hour an hour jobs that are in need of “workforce development”.
Cannon fodder. Scott, you forgot that poor kids are supposed to serve as cannon fodder too. How else are the rich old fat bellied war profiteers supposed to get richer?
There you go, Scott and Debbo! The state is throwing lots of resources and legislation into recruiting non-college jobs. Their workforce development, like their higher ed policy, seems focused on reducing the number of college-educated South Dakotans.
Hmm… Kristi’s party must think education is bad for business.
Here’s a better way to lead & manage colleges — no tuition increases for 7 years. Guess what – enrollment grew and brought more students and more funding. Have a business program? – Then put its graduates in charge of offices to deliver education services more effectively and efficiently.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/mitch-daniels-purdue/606772/?utm_source=pocket-newtab