This comment is mostly intended for my local readers – the argument I make may not apply to other locations.
There are simply too many institutions of higher education in North Dakota. Some are smaller than the high schools you may have attended. The various institutions continually push to expand their missions as a matter of survival. Funding for higher education has taken the approach here that appears evident everywhere. All institutions must act more and more like they are private institutions – they rely on the money they raise (mostly tuition dollars) rather than on funding from the state. The problem with doing this in ND is that there are too many institutions and too few students. In fact, the number of undergraduates represents a shrinking pool because of out migration.
The worse case of this problem involves graduate education. I am “old schools” so graduate education for me implies high standards for admission, demanding learning experiences, and an intense, mentored process. It is costly because of the faculty time and resources required, but it develops quality graduates. You should not get into this game unless you have resources and can attract a reasonable number of students.
It appears that some of the smaller institutions in ND feel they have the appropriate personnel and resources to offer graduate experiences. Obviously, this will not be done based on my “old school” model. In fairness, I suppose the question must be what alternative models are appropriate for graduate training in education.
It is not so much that different approaches are not worth trying (e.g., graduate school based on the junior college model). The problem is that distributing the pool of potential graduate students across more institutions will reduce the tuition resources available to any one institution. In areas in which there is competition (primarily education college programs), there will not be enough students to warrant the allocation of resources to run quality programs at any institution.
