Plain Talk With Rob Port

There is an increasingly intense debate among state lawmakers and leaders in the North Dakota University System about the impact online education is having on the state's public campuses. "My concern is about this conversation becoming so toxic," university system Commissioner Brent Sanford said on this episode of Plain Talk. Sanford -- who is now using the title "commissioner" instead of "chancellor" like his predecessors because the former is the term used in state law -- says he understands the concerns some lawmakers have, but also wants them to understand his argument, which is that most of the online students are a boon to the state. Sure, some of them might never step foot in the state, and it doesn't make a lot of sense for North Dakota taxpayers to subsidize them, but in the aggregate students taking online courses from our public institutions of higher education is a good thing, he argues. What needs to happen, Sanford says, is for the various campuses to better illustrate who we're talking about fo