MnEEP calls on Minnesota State and University of Minnesota to Not Abandon Racial Equity Opportunities

By Carlos Mariani Rosa, Executive Director & Tami Akoi, MnEEP College Race Equity Coordinator

Both Minnesota State and the University of Minnesota systems are facing significant financial pressures, but those pressures cannot become reasons we regress on our commitments to the academic success that racial equity work means to our state. 

Facing daunting financial challenges due to the convergence of three major social and economic dynamics: 1) shifting student enrollment demographics, 2) high inflationary cost-of-living projections, and 3) state government appropriations that are not keeping pace with either of those, the MinnState and University of Minnesota higher education systems have recently announced the need to make dramatic budget cuts while adopting major tuition increases.

MinnState has increased undergraduate tuition for fiscal year 2027 by 6.25% which is notably larger than previous years (MinnState, 2026). Minnesota State also indicated substantial institutional restructuring that could include campus mergers and cross-campus consolidation of academic departments. 

Universal Access is Key to Minnesota’s Success

Our state has long prided itself on providing broad access to higher education throughout every corner of our large state, making that decision a key contributor to our state’s social and economic success. Our nation-leading progress in agriculture, manufacturing, medical sciences, mining, entertainment, and the arts has been fueled by Minnesotans who developed advanced skills through our post-secondary institutions regardless of where they reside..  

Through the research of MnEEP and many others, Minnesotans came to understand that we could continue our past success only by expanding post-secondary opportunities for our rapidly growing, yet long-neglected, People of Color and Indigenous communities (POCI). As a result of these efforts, African American, Latino, Asian, and American Indian students are enrolling in larger numbers in state college and university programs. 

We are at a point in our history where Minnesota’s economic and social success has come to depend on People of Color and Indigenous communities’ (POCI) pursuit of higher education credentials. 

Racial Equity is How We Keep That Success

But higher admissions do not necessarily translate into successful credential completion, whether in skilled trades certificates or undergraduate and graduate degrees. With that awareness, in the last few years both MinnState and the University of Minnesota have begun implementing stronger, culturally affirming programming and instruction to align with the unique needs of POCI students. 

In 2019, MinnState muscularly set a systems-wide goal, MinnState Equity 2030, to “eliminate the educational equity gaps at every Minnesota State college and university.”

The Trustees decided that equity work leads to credentialing success and that the state had reached a key moment when more was needed than just good equity programs spread across campuses. They correctly saw the need for a systems-level framework to drive new practices across the Minnesota State system. 

At the same time, the University of Minnesota system adopted institutional goals to reduce racial differences in student academic achievement. Last amended in 2023, the University of Minnesota Regents’ governing policy, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity,” commits the institution to these practices. This commitment is specifically identified in the University’s MPact 2025 Strategic Plan, as decreasing 4-year and 6-year graduation gaps between white and POCI students. 

Both systems had come to see equitable outcomes across all student groups as fundamental to enabling student success.

The Present Federal Government is Working Against Minnesota’s Success

However, since 2024, the new federal administration has worked to coerce higher education systems to devalue diversity and inclusion work, threatening legal action and defunding federal resources for colleges and universities committed to racial equity. In response, many educational institutions have slowed their pursuit of equity work. This has happened despite federal courts rejecting the Administration’s attempts to enforce its ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion. (See MnEEP Blog Aug 2025).

For MnEEP, the convergence of the federal administration’s attack on higher-ed institutions for their equity practices and the financial challenges those institutions face is gravely concerning. We fear that we could lose the commitments education systems have made in recent years to racial equity. 

Overcompliance and Timidity = Hurting Ourselves

We note the cautious disappearance of equity language and references to program offerings at the University of Minnesota. There, programs that assertively worked to bring in POCI students to opportunities for increased belonging and learning experiences have been heavily restricted in referencing the outreach and inclusion of those students. As examples, and in accordance with the U of M Office of General Counsel it has:

• Removed language on how race was socially constructed on its websites with the exception of the MLK Academic Advising Programs, as it refers to the history of the Morrill Takeover and the Afro-American Action Committee
• Forbidden inviting the Citizens League’s “Capitol Pathways Program” to conduct internship informational sessions on University of Minnesota campuses. This is a broadly embraced program, including by the MN state legislature, for presenting opportunities for POCI students to experience public policy work. 
• References to race have been removed from the University of Minnesota “Living Learning” websites.
• The University of Minnesota “George Floyd Scholarship” is no longer offered.

MnEEP understands that the University of Minnesota has been compelled to walk a fine line under the scrutiny of a federal government hostile to opportunities for POCI students.

We caution how far it is going to avoid being inclusive of these students that may put it in “over-compliance” to pressure that legally has no standing in law, that violate the spirit of our state’s historic commitments to civil rights and that restricts the ability of POCI students to excel in obtaining academic credentials. 

Meanwhile,  MinnState seems to continue implementation of its Equity 2030 plan, but we also note that its public messages sharing the Trustee’s calls for a comprehensive review for how to restructure itself to meet financial challenges is silent on the plan..

While MnEEP does not take these developments as proof that the two public higher education systems are abandoning the important work of racial equity, we understand that the financial pressures they are facing can bend their will towards doing so.

We believe that any failure to consider the significance of racial equity to student success while discussions about restructuring are taking place, would be disastrous to our students and to Minnesota’s social and economic success. Minnesota’s well-being means we simply cannot retreat on this work. 

MnEEP calls on both the MinnState and the University of MN systems to re-commit themselves to student belonging and racial equity as they implement budgetary changes and do so with clear, measurable markers of progress as they undergo major redesign for delivering educational opportunities to all Minnesotans.

This commitment should include active engagement with POCi students and community-based advocacy groups, including MnEEP.