Minnesota is home to the Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) program. Enacted 40 years ago, PSEO was replicated in other states, but never as robustly as envisioned by Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich in 1985.
I didn’t use PSEO when I was in high school, but did take advantage of concurrent enrollment courses — college in the schools — a program included with the same policy. My wife chose PSEO and two of my three kids did as well.
These programs remain popular because they provide college credits free of cost, regardless of income. They save time, too. As a 21-year community college instructor I worked with hundreds of students earned their associate’s degrees before they received their high school diplomas. They needed only two more years to get a bachelor’s degree. That gave them a jump on their peers when entering the workforce.
Indeed, the popularity and advantages of the program are not in doubt. Still, we find unresolved controversy from that summer of ’85. When academically eligible high school students leave two years early for free college, the high school is left figuring out how to schedule courses for everyone else. Advanced placement and other specialty courses became more difficult to offer. Lower enrollment also mean lower state funding allocation, another blow to the school.
For my latest column, I talked to sources from high schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations. A demographic drop-off is coming; fewer kids, less funding. In that context, PSEO only bandages the problems of high costs and systems built for different purposes.
Read “At 40, Minnesota’s PSEO program earns an incomplete,” in the Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
