Reports: Minnesota Crookston, St. Cloud State to drop football

Think it's the fact aswell that mankato actually puts money into renovations and their buildings unlike scsu. Better classroom better teachers equal more enrollment

Kids really look at those kinds of amenities. Cafeteria amenities is another, not a joke. St. Olaf brags about having the #1 rated cafeteria food.
 

Kids really look at those kinds of amenities. Cafeteria amenities is another, not a joke. St. Olaf brags about having the #1 rated cafeteria food.

Yep. Went through that process with my kid the last couple of years. Facilities and general campus personality were a big deal.
 

FWIW, MSU Mankato is dominating at Slippery Rock in the D2 semis 23-8 in the snow/rain (2nd quarter). Maybe the only 4-year MNSCU school to keep enrollment steady the past decade. They emphasize strong athletics. Any correlation there?

Mankato has really tried to grow into a top regional public university - it's been their goal for many years and it's finally coming to fruition. It's also a pretty nice small city to live in and the campus is nice.

St. Cloud has had a mixed reputation for years. It's been viewed as "the party school" of the MNSCU schools for a long time. And to be honest, St. Cloud itself has had some negative image problems over the years as well. I really think a rebranding would help them - something like Central Minnesota State University.

When Moorhead State rebranded to MN State Moorhead, I thought they should have gone with Northwest Minnesota State instead of parroting Mankato.
 

Yep. Went through that process with my kid the last couple of years. Facilities and general campus personality were a big deal.
It’s almost like people going to live somewhere for four years of their life value the quality of their life they’re going to have
 



I just saw the headline and thought of the recruiting bump :p
 

Mankato has really tried to grow into a top regional public university - it's been their goal for many years and it's finally coming to fruition. It's also a pretty nice small city to live in and the campus is nice.

St. Cloud has had a mixed reputation for years. It's been viewed as "the party school" of the MNSCU schools for a long time. And to be honest, St. Cloud itself has had some negative image problems over the years as well. I really think a rebranding would help them - something like Central Minnesota State University.

When Moorhead State rebranded to MN State Moorhead, I thought they should have gone with Northwest Minnesota State instead of parroting Mankato.
Mankato should have gone with University of Southern Minnesota. Sounds warmer.
 

View attachment 67736-10 year range as of this year
Every school has these. They are nothing more than a wishlist. At Mankato State, it isn't happening unless a donor drops a bag of money. The school struggles to get legislative support for it's academic physical plant as it is. It won't ask the legislature for a new football stadium and even if it did, they legislature would not bond for it.
 

Every school has these. They are nothing more than a wishlist. At Mankato State, it isn't happening unless a donor drops a bag of money. The school struggles to get legislative support for it's academic physical plant as it is. It won't ask the legislature for a new football stadium and even if it did, they legislature would not bond for it.
Msu stated they would not ask for bonding as it would take over a decade to work out and they fear they dont have that much time they estimate a new stadium at 20-40 million they said they would start the project at 50% funding properly going to be like the athletic village at the u build it and keep asking for donations
 



Think it's the fact aswell that mankato actually puts money into renovations and their buildings unlike scsu. Better classroom better teachers equal more enrollment
It helps when Glen Taylor builds a basketball arena. St. Cloud actually has a nicer campus than Mankato. It is right on the river. The St. Cloud area is also twice the size of the Mankato area. St. Cloud also has a new football stadium and the newly renovated National Hockey Center is on campus whereas MSU plays hockey off campus. Facilities are not the problem. It is the wave of the future. Not only will colleges be dropping sports many of these colleges will close all together. Welcome the the world of living on the internet.
 

Minnesota is quickly becoming a centralized one metro state Paris/France style. I'd expect to see the trend of the metro (plus Rochester) booming and the outstate slowly dying off continue if not accelerate over the next several decades.

As much as I hate Wisconsin, small town/rural areas there are surviving well compared to here.
 

It helps when Glen Taylor builds a basketball arena. St. Cloud actually has a nicer campus than Mankato.

I didn't go to school at either, but have been to both campuses several times. I much prefer Mankato. St. Cloud has a lot of ugly buildings/grungier feel to campus. Yes it's on the river, but they don't exactly make the river part of the landscape of the campus.
 

Minnesota is quickly becoming a centralized one metro state Paris/France style. I'd expect to see the trend of the metro (plus Rochester) booming and the outstate slowly dying off continue if not accelerate over the next several decades.

As much as I hate Wisconsin, small town/rural areas there are surviving well compared to here.
Agree with this analysis. I think it is true in almost every state. Rural America is dying. The young people from rural America are moving to bigger cities. Minnesota this is especially true. Without an increase in tourism industry Duluth would be dying as well
 



I didn't go to school at either, but have been to both campuses several times. I much prefer Mankato. St. Cloud has a lot of ugly buildings/grungier feel to campus. Yes it's on the river, but they don't exactly make the river part of the landscape of the campus.
I like St. Cloud better, it is a bigger campus and the city is bigger. There is more to do. The Mankato campus is pretty generic and sterile. The National Hockey Center is on campus where Mankato plays in a dumpy arena but they are coming into the NCHC soon.
 

Agree with this analysis. I think it is true in almost every state. Rural America is dying. The young people from rural America are moving to bigger cities. Minnesota this is especially true. Without an increase in tourism industry Duluth would be dying as well

I'd love to live in Duluth but there's almost no jobs there for someone with a college degree outside the medical industry. The few that are there pay about half what a comparable job does in the cities. And I've looked a lot.
 

It helps when Glen Taylor builds a basketball arena. St. Cloud actually has a nicer campus than Mankato. It is right on the river. The St. Cloud area is also twice the size of the Mankato area. St. Cloud also has a new football stadium and the newly renovated National Hockey Center is on campus whereas MSU plays hockey off campus. Facilities are not the problem. It is the wave of the future. Not only will colleges be dropping sports many of these colleges will close all together. Welcome the the world of living on the internet.
I disagree to. Ever been inside the building? Everything is dated and old. Mankato keeps putting up new building abd they are going to start a renovation on their biggest and most used building soon. when the last time scsu got a new building. Or even spend multi millions on renovating. Also housing by scsu is horrible compared to msu. Scsu has demolished most of their housing where msu has a big dorm population and they are adding new dorm units in the future. Weird how scsu enrollment had been going down but msu is going up it's not a new era of internet.
I like St. Cloud better, it is a bigger campus
what do you mean by this? Scsu is 100 acres msu is 303 acres
 
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Mankato should have gone with University of Southern Minnesota. Sounds warmer.
Mankato wanted to be called that back in 1963, but the U opposed it. It was part of the same legislation that resulted in the creation of Southwest State (now SMSU).
 

I'd love to live in Duluth but there's almost no jobs there for someone with a college degree outside the medical industry. The few that are there pay about half what a comparable job does in the cities. And I've looked a lot.

Interestingly enough, unemployment in Duluth is at a historic low. Around 2%. But yes, there aren't a lot of high paying jobs. The company my wife works for has a plant there, and they can't get people to work there - and they pay well. A big issue is people can't pass a drug test.
 

I like St. Cloud better, it is a bigger campus and the city is bigger. There is more to do. The Mankato campus is pretty generic and sterile. The National Hockey Center is on campus where Mankato plays in a dumpy arena but they are coming into the NCHC soon.

The only outstate college town I'd rather live in less than St. Cloud is Crookston. And that includes Moorhead (where I graduated college). Moorhead is a stinking (literally - have you smelled sugar beet processing), cold, windy, rundown dump of a town. And I'd STILL rather live there than St. Cloud. At least up there, you have Fargo across the river, which is a really nice mid-sized city if not for the weather.
 

Hockey in Minnesota eventually destroys football. Shiiteloads of SCSU money goes to hockey.



This. Hockey or football. Not both.
Hockey was the right choice for St. Cloud. Not even close. It's probably a net money maker for them. Football was for sure a money loser.
 

SCSU has 58 season ticket holders last year. They draw 1/7 of what St Johns does. No one in that area will miss the program.
 

Msu stated they would not ask for bonding as it would take over a decade to work out and they fear they dont have that much time they estimate a new stadium at 20-40 million they said they would start the project at 50% funding properly going to be like the athletic village at the u build it and keep asking for donations

MSU couldn't raise $4 million to complete their new athletic bubble and passed the buck on to students via student fees. In addition, the project budget ran way over.

NFW will there be a new stadium without the majority coming from the state. And building a new stadium with 50% cash-in hand and fundraising the remainder is a death wish. Servicing the remaining debt and fundraising for a completed project are big mistakes.
 

Mankato has really tried to grow into a top regional public university - it's been their goal for many years and it's finally coming to fruition. It's also a pretty nice small city to live in and the campus is nice.

St. Cloud has had a mixed reputation for years. It's been viewed as "the party school" of the MNSCU schools for a long time. And to be honest, St. Cloud itself has had some negative image problems over the years as well. I really think a rebranding would help them - something like Central Minnesota State University.

When Moorhead State rebranded to MN State Moorhead, I thought they should have gone with Northwest Minnesota State instead of parroting Mankato.
St Cloud area is very conservative, from what I understand. Not sure how Mankato is.

Mankato also has money, I think from Glenn Taylor, who is an alum of MSU, and Taylor Corp.
 

Agree with this analysis. I think it is true in almost every state. Rural America is dying. The young people from rural America are moving to bigger cities. Minnesota this is especially true. Without an increase in tourism industry Duluth would be dying as well
Well, that's the thing isn't it? Duluth, and other smaller areas, have to figure out how to make themselves stay relevant in the "Gig age". Duluth is a wonderful town to visit, when it's not the winter. Rochester has the medical/tech thing. The rest of the out-state areas in MN? Not sure what they've got going for them. Mankato has Taylor Corp, but no idea what it does, and there are some other examples, such as Digikey way up in TRF.

As more and more "family farms" die off, in place of corporate agriculture and/or urban agriculture, you indeed wonder what will happen to small ag towns.
 

I like St. Cloud better, it is a bigger campus and the city is bigger. There is more to do. The Mankato campus is pretty generic and sterile. The National Hockey Center is on campus where Mankato plays in a dumpy arena but they are coming into the NCHC soon.
Is that speculation? I haven't seen any confirmed NCHC expansions. So you think Arizona St and Mankato?

I really think Mankato, St Cloud, and Duluth should all look at following Omaha's path. Perhaps with Pioneer League football.

Also, why are you saying the Verizon Center is dumpy?? I'm not at all getting that from this: https://msumavericks.com/sports/2009/9/8/GEN_0908092032.aspx Quite a bit better than some other college arenas.
 

I'd love to live in Duluth but there's almost no jobs there for someone with a college degree outside the medical industry. The few that are there pay about half what a comparable job does in the cities. And I've looked a lot.
I hear ads about "offshore to the north shore", so would be curious what kind of tech jobs they have there. Have never looked into that.
 

One of the only things helping remote communities is the higher ability to work remotely, where people don't need to commute daily.

The ag-based businesses are all melding into Mega-Corps taking away spending at the local level.
 

The only outstate college town I'd rather live in less than St. Cloud is Crookston. And that includes Moorhead (where I graduated college). Moorhead is a stinking (literally - have you smelled sugar beet processing), cold, windy, rundown dump of a town. And I'd STILL rather live there than St. Cloud. At least up there, you have Fargo across the river, which is a really nice mid-sized city if not for the weather.
I honestly just think of Moorhead as a bedroom community for Fargo. I don't know what if anything it has on its own, other than chain restaurants, Target, and grocery stores.
 

One of the only things helping remote communities is the higher ability to work remotely, where people don't need to commute daily.

The ag-based businesses are all melding into Mega-Corps taking away spending at the local level.
Rural broadband (fiber optic, not crappy DSL) is going to be a massive, huge deal for these communities.

Damned shame that the cableco's rigged the FCC to make it illegal for municipalities to invest in them. Would really like to see that overturned.
 

I honestly just think of Moorhead as a bedroom community for Fargo. I don't know what if anything it has on its own, other than chain restaurants, Target, and grocery stores.

They bulldozed the downtown back in the 70's to build an eyesore of a mall that nobody goes to. It's really a rundown city. Think of Superior, WI - they're about the same level of dump.

The two campuses, MSUM and Concordia are quite nice though.
 




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