What's happening at the Capitol

Just a little update on my monitoring of the floor discussion of the Senate higher-education omnibus bill.

There's a lot of irritation over administrative costs and tuition at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU). Multiple amendments (Republican, I believe) targeting that:

• a "Tubby Smith" amendment prohibiting use of state appropriations for coaching-contract buyouts;

• a mandatory performance goal for the U to cut administrative costs;

• a "hard freeze" on tuition that would tie the systems' hands;

• a prohibition on the use of state funding for incentive bonuses;

• a mandate that the U's Big Ten in-state-tuition ranking (which is high) not be higher that its out-of-state-tuition ranking (which is low).

Most have failed, but they've generated a lot of discussion. Lots of news reports about the U's admin costs.

We'll see what follows.

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