North Dakota higher education officials are deeply worried about losing students and revenue in 2024 when neighboring Minnesota makes public college and university tuition free for thousands of residents.
One of the things I liked about going to Iowa State was just how much of the university funds were generated by educational led programs. Some colleges had programs with the US government to pay for research, some had tech patents that were licensed to tech and ag sector leaders. While we do get a lot of money for football, if that dropped off it would mean losing other degrees but not a horrible loss.
Until Nebraska joined the Big 10 all of the schools in that division had a similar situation. Its sad that there is such a focus on sports when the point is education.