November 14, 2020 by Philip Lewenstein

David B. Laird Jr.: Senior Statesman of Minnesota Higher Education

Every two years, the governor and Minnesota Legislature appropriate funds for state government. Funds for higher education are allocated to the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota State System, and the Office of Higher Education (a cabinet agency), largely for need-based financial aid. The need-based state grants are awarded to low-and moderate-income students who choose to attend a public or private college or university.

Competition for the limited state dollars is intense with high-level lobbying, especially by the two state higher-education systems, including faculty, students, alumni, community members, and business interests.

About 84 % of state spending for higher education goes to the two public systems and 13 % to the State Grant Program. Minnesota does not provide direct subsidies to private colleges.

However, state policymakers continue to recognize the value and contributions of the private- college sector by providing grant aid to students who choose a public or private school that can best meet their educational needs. About 4 % of state higher-education spending goes to private- college students who receive state grants.

For almost a half century, the leading advocate of state support for private colleges via need-based grants directly to students was David B. Laird Jr., who died September 13. Laird continually reminded policymakers of the value of a diverse system of both public and private higher-education institutions to ensure access and success for students.

Laird told an impressive story about Minnesota’s private colleges which prepare graduates to fill critical state workforce needs and add more than $1.6 billion annually to the state’s economy by direct spending that includes wages, operating costs, and construction expenditures.

The private colleges educate about 56,000 undergraduate and graduate students a year and have the highest (68 %) four-year graduation rate in Minnesota and the Midwest. The colleges prepare 30 % of the state’s baccalaureate degrees (including 49 % of all physical science degrees and 41 % of nursing degrees) and 46 % of all master’s degrees (including 62 % of education degrees). The colleges exemplify diversity. Twenty-three % of all undergraduates are first generation (neither parent completed college) students, and 24 % of all undergraduates are students of color and Native Americans.

Laird had become the senior statesman of Minnesota higher education. Chancellors and presidents came and went, but Laird was a constant presence, proposing and supporting an ambitious budget and policy agenda for higher education, including private-college students.

I met Laird 47 years ago when I arrived to a new position as assistant to the director of the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Commission. He took me under his wing. I didn’t know much about Minnesota higher education, state government, or the legislature. He taught me about the mission, purpose, and values of Minnesota higher education, about access, choice, and equal opportunity. He taught me about the importance of a diverse, dual system of higher education.

Laird began his career in Minnesota in the early 1970s after earning his doctorate, managing a division of the Coordinating Commission, then an independent state body with a citizen board reporting to both the governor and legislature. He directly managed and participated in programs that continue to serve Minnesota students well: grant and loan programs, interstate tuition reciprocity, library sharing, consumer protection, and educational technology. He managed a program (Minnesota Private College Contract Program) of direct subsidies to private colleges that educated low-income Minnesota students—a program that was later merged into the State Grant Program.

During internal discussions and externally, Laird was a passionate voice for a dual system of public and private colleges, not allowing us to forget the importance of both types, a lesson that would become personal. At the time in the early 1970s, I never imagined that my family would earn eight degrees from private colleges as well as three from the University of Minnesota. One child attended two other private colleges, and his wife graduated from still another. And my mother graduated from St. Scholastica in Duluth 80 years ago.

Laird fought hard for the principles of access and choice and even in economic downturns he argued for more, not less, need-based assistance to preserve and expand higher education opportunities for all students. I recall an early experience when the executive branch asked state agencies to provide budget-reduction plans of varying percentages. In preparing a response for our agency, Laird defiantly responded that we could not reduce student aid but needed to protect it because of its importance to low-and moderate-income students.

Laird eventually left the higher-education agency to work for Springsted Inc., bond advisers, and then went to Carleton College to serve as a vice president of planning and development. In 1988, he began a 21-year career as president of the Minnesota Private College Council and Minnesota Private College Fund.

The Council, created in 1948, represents 17 nonprofit higher-education liberal-arts colleges and universities in Minnesota. The Council’s mission is to serve its members’ shared needs and advocate for public policy that meets the educational needs of students, enhances private higher education, and strengthens Minnesota’s economic and civic fabric. The state grant program is the primary focus of the Council’s advocacy efforts. The Council also serves its members and the state through research, publications, and outreach.

The Fund, started in 1951, is a separate organization that serves member colleges primarily by raising money for student scholarships and college operations. By state statute, the president of the Council and Fund represents the private colleges on the Higher Education Facilities Authority and by practice on several statewide and national organizations.

During his tenure as Council president, Laird served 55 college presidents and hundreds of board members and soon became a student of effective president-board relations. Further, he continuously served as an advocate and resource to state and federal governments, including governors, legislative leaders, Congress, and executive-branch agencies. He recruited major business leaders to join the Council board and advocate its public-policy agenda. He created a research staff whose analytics supported public-policy discussions.

Laird was a leading advocate of college-access programs such as the federal TRIO programs. College Possible, and Minnesota’s Intervention for College Attendance Grant program. He was the founding chairman of the board of College Possible, a program begun in Minnesota that has grown to serve more than 23,000 students nationwide.

TRIO includes eight programs targeted to serve and assist low-income students and first-generation college students, including those with disabilities. College Possible, supported by private support and AmeriCorps, makes college admission and success possible for low-income students with an intensive curriculum of counseling and support. The Intervention for College Attendance Program encourages and supports efforts by colleges and community agencies to enhance and expand precollege awareness or intervention programs for low-income students.

Given Laird’s contributions, it was fitting that in 2009 Laird received the Edgar M. Carlson award given annually by the board of directors of the Minnesota Private College Council for distinguished service to higher education. The award is named in honor of its first recipient, Dr. Edgar M. Carlson, who served as president of Gustavus Adolphus from 1944 to 1968 and who was founder and first executive director of the Council. Dr. Carlson believed that higher education should always be “engaged in the quest for truth in its broadest and deepest sense.”

In my early years at the state higher-education agency, I was fortunate to meet and observe Dr. Carlson, a leader greatly respected for his wisdom, knowledge, and integrity.

Under Dr. Carlson’s leadership, the organization became the statutory representative of private higher education in Minnesota. Also, during Dr. Carlson’s tenure, the Private College Council research foundation (later merged into the Council itself) was established, and Minnesota established its first need-based student scholarship program.

The prestigious Carlson award has been given to distinguished college presidents, leading philanthropists, foundation leaders, legislators, a governor (Rudy Perpich), a vice president (Walter Mondale), and leading corporate supporters and their employees.

Laird was a 2010 recipient of the Hubert H. Humphrey Public Leadership Award from the University of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The award honors individuals, organizations, and corporations that have contributed to the common good through leadership and service. Laird also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Concordia College, Moorhead.

Laird founded Templeton Laird in 2010 and served as president of this international consulting partnership of experienced professionals dedicated to helping leaders of independent higher education navigate a period of continuing challenge and change.

Laird was one of two founders of NorthStar, a billion- dollar student-loan intermediary based in Minnesota which at its peak served $9 billion of student loans.

Several of Laird’s positions involved extensive international travel and consulting in China and Southeast Asia. He helped establish the first private liberal-arts college in China, since Mao, with a group of Asian leaders and Minnesota private-college presidents

Laird received a bachelor of-arts degree in government and history as well as a master of education and history from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, and he later served on its board of trustees. He earned a doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Laird was a beloved husband, father, and grandfather. For me and many others, he was a valued friend, colleague, and mentor.  

A fighter for educational equity and equal opportunity, Laird was a consistent, persistent advocate for state, federal, and private support to enhance access and success for all students. Thousands of students have benefited from his work over the past 50 years, and thousands more will benefit in the next 50 years because of his legacy.

Laird understood the changing challenges facing higher education and provided leadership, knowledge, and wisdom to educators and policymakers in developing solutions. While he was the voice of private higher education, he realized the importance of a combined effort by all sectors of higher education to ensure student success.