Photo by Samantha Davis. Community and faculty members speak to the MN state board of trustees and the chancellor Wednesday morning at SMSU about priorities and concerns for Minnesota education.

MARSHALL — Ensuring a desire for students to stay in Minnesota for employment was a large discussion Wednesday morning as Southwest Minnesota State University hosted an active listening session.

Faculty and community members voiced priorities and concerns to the state chancellor and board of trustees.

The state board of trustees are preparing to present a proposal of collective ideas from various Minnesota colleges to legislation this November for the 2026-27 fiscal year state biennial budget request.

There is an ongoing discussion and concern of various Minnesota workforces needing employment, and a factor which plays into that is students choosing to do their schooling and entering the career field in other states. The question prompted was if the Minnesota education system can create more support or opportunities for students to want to stay.

“There’s nothing tying these kids to the state of Minnesota, we’d like to see something where it ties the kids to stay in Minnesota after they go to college,” Brad Gruhot, the Marshall Chamber of Commerce President shared with the group. “They [students] get the free tuition right now and just head to Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin, or whatever it is. I ask that we consider them staying in the state of Minnesota afterwards.”

Currently in place to support Minnesota students is the North Star Promise, which provides free college tuition for Minnesota residents who make below $80,000 a year. This is an ongoing program and applies to all Minnesota colleges and universities.

Falling under the category of more opportunities for this region, would be expanding degree programs at SMSU.

SMSU President Kumara Jayasuriya announced there has been a desperate need for the university to offer a full-time nursing degree and will be moving forward with creating the program. The university currently only has an online nursing program, intended for already registered nurses looking to finish their nursing degree.

“They have been pushing us to have a four-year nursing degree, not only Avera, but all the local hospitals have been pushing us ever since I started in 2019 … Our problem was raising a million dollars to start a program,” Jayasuriya said. “Last year, our administrative team decided, with or without funding, we are moving forward because we have leveraged equipment funds. We got funding to create our curriculum. Avera has helped us with funding, and many hospitals have pledged to give us equipment, so we are moving forward pretty soon.”

Michael Kurowski, assistant director in the SMSU Center for International Education echoed Jayasuriya, knowing he has students ready with interest in a nursing degree.

“I will say this, and many will say it’s hyperbole, but I can get you 100 students tomorrow if we had a four-year in-person nursing degree,” Kurowski said. “We run into things like facilities [for] nursing. We need a big facility, we need big money. It’s just the way it is … If we can remember the long term investment — Yes, we may need 20 million now, but that will turn into a hundred million later.”

SMSU Provost Dr. Ross Wastvedt also commended the need for the continuation of leverage equipment funding, which would continue to bring in educational equipment across the various colleges at SMSU for students to better prepare for their career field. Jayasuriya detailed that the college has to match every dollar spent in leverage funding, but they have been successful so far in doing so.

“In greater Minnesota, it [employment] is a challenge … Unlike Chicago or Minneapolis, it’s a little bit of a challenge to attract and retain workers,” chancellor of Minnesota state colleges and universities Scott Olson said. “There’s a lot of people who, if they knew about this region, would love it, would come here, would be happy to live here … We have to make sure we’ve got the kind of programming needed that attracts students, and also serves those communities.”

An idea prompted was to expand North Star or create another initiative like South Dakota currently implements with Build Dakota, which is a scholarship program that gives free tuition to those pursuing demanding degrees and careers at South Dakota technical colleges. The students must stay in the state for three years to receive their full free tuition.

The education field was also mentioned.

“I think looking forward, workforce is going to be a challenge. I know for our organization, for K-12 schools, who we serve mostly, I know that there’s some very specific kinds of things that we’re addressing related to programs,” Executive director of Southwest Central Service Cooperative Cliff Carmody said. “For example, speech language pathology, school psychologists … Access to those programs in Minnesota seems to be waning. That creates problems for us.”

Marshall district superintendent Jeremy Williams also acknowledged the need and want to hire local teachers and school faculty.

“As an employer, we’re looking for people to hire. More than ever, we’re hiring teachers,” Williams said. “The other piece is for our students. We got a lot of students right here in town, but not just our students, the whole region, [is] trying to encourage them to stay in the region.”

Williams also mentioned the district currently has a handful of partnerships with local businesses, including with SMSU, to continue showing employment opportunities.

The effort of increasing interest in the Minnesota workforce has to be a community effort, as Regional President and CEO for Marshall Avera Medical Center Debbie Streier mentioned.

“I think we have to find a way to differentiate ourselves, to make people want to stay and that’s not an SMSU problem. That’s a community issue,” Streier said. “[We] need to band together and figure that out, because it’s not just going to happen naturally, and it can’t be on the back of just one business or university in the community. So, how do we work together to differentiate ourselves and keep our future workforce here?”

Olson agreed with the comments made, acknowledging that opportunities at colleges play a direct correlation with Minnesota workforce and there needs to be educational advancements to offer more student support.

“The manufacturers here, the businesses and industry employers here, the schools, the nonprofits, they’ll say they can’t get the talent they need, there aren’t enough students coming in,” Olson said. “You heard a number of different programs that people mentioned as being areas of especially high pressure here at Marshall. The legislature, they’ve given us workforce development grants in the past. Would they be interested in continuing or expanding that program, which is to encourage students to go into those high-need fields.”