Dec. 22—MOORHEAD — Five Fargo-Moorhead area higher education institutions have agreed to an alliance allowing students at their schools to take courses at the other institutions without undergoing separate admission procedures.
The Metro College Alliance was announced via news release on Friday, Dec. 20, but was signed onto during a ceremony in Moorhead by the school presidents two days prior.
The agreement involves North Dakota State College of Science, North Dakota State University, Concordia College, Minnesota State Community and Technical College (M State) and Minnesota State University Moorhead.
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Metro College Alliance takes the place of the long-standing Tri-College University consortium,
which school leaders announced in late 2023 would cease operations at the end of 2024.
Tri-College allowed students to take courses at any one of the partner campuses without paying any additional fees or tuition.
The new agreement,
which came about as a result of an evolving higher education landscape, is similar.
M State President Carrie Brimhall said no money is exchanged between the institutions when a student takes courses under the Metro College Alliance.
“There are no additional costs for students outside of the tuition that they would have paid to take a course at their home institution,” Brimhall told The Forum.
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The alliance, effective Jan. 1, 2025, is open to degree-seeking students at member institutions who want to take undergraduate courses at another campus.
It ensures that students have access to courses that may not be available at their home campus, especially in their final academic year or for specific program requirements, the news release said.
Several hundred students are typically enrolled in Tri-College, Brimhall said previously, mostly in popular programs such as ROTC and American Sign Language.
Some students from other institutions opt to take American Sign Language at M State as their foreign language requirement, rather than learning Spanish or German, she said previously.
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The historic partnership of Tri-College University dates back to 1970 and initially involved NDSU, Concordia and MSUM.
In 2015, Tri-College was expanded to include M State and NDSCS.
A major change with Metro College Alliance is the decentralizing of the exchange agreement’s services and administration.
The biggest cost savings will come from each of the five institutions no longer having to pay a fee for administration of the Tri-College program, Brimhall said previously.
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