As the new school year is about to begin, it’s important to remember what an important role education plays in Minnesota’s future. For the past several years, we lost sight of that part of the equation. Schools saw funding either cut or shifted away and class sizes and layoff numbers grew. This year, along with tripling our investment in job creation, we invested more than $725 million in new education funding to educate and train the workers to fill those new jobs.

The K-12 schools in our district alone will see more than $4.7 million in new education funding over the next two years. That’s a 3.5 percent increase over current funding. That will provide everything from fully funded all-day kindergarten to smaller class sizes and better resources for teachers.

Students graduating from high school can take advantage of frozen tuition at all two- and four-year public colleges and universities thanks to $250 million in new higher education funding aimed at making college more affordable. More than $70 million of that new funding will go towards the state grant program, which offers financial aid to help Minnesota families send their children to college.

We made these new investments because we think every student deserves the chance to have a good job when they’re done with school. If we want a strong Minnesota economy in the future, we need to educate a strong workforce today.

 

Shannon Savick
state representative
District 27A
Wells