Minnesota started offering free public college tuition. Now North Dakota State University is, too.

Amberly Freeman lives at the center of an intense college recruiting battle. Three colleges within 10 miles of her Moorhead public school have recently announced free tuition programs.

The ambitious senior wants to study neuroscience at Columbia University in New York City. But she knows costs will influence her final college decision — and free tuition would be hard to pass up.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Freeman said.

Minnesota's North Star Promise program takes effect for students applying now to public colleges for the Fall 2024 semester. That tuition-free lure to keep them in the state has already captured the attention of college leaders elsewhere in the Midwest, who are scrambling to create their own programs for fear of losing Minnesota students. The competition is playing out most intensely in the Fargo-Moorhead area, where colleges are perched on either side of the Red River.

Minnesota State University Moorhead President Tim Downs estimates hundreds of the students there will be eligible for the program, which covers tuition for Minnesota residents who attend a public college within state borders if their families make less than $80,000 per year. Concordia College in Moorhead announced a similar scholarship for students whose families make less than $90,000 per year. And North Dakota State University, in Fargo, is using donations to try to match the North Star Promise next year for students from Minnesota or North Dakota, while calling on lawmakers there to help find a longer-term solution.

"The truth of the matter is things are competitive," said Ben Iverson, vice president for enrollment at Concordia College. "We are all after the same number, maybe a slightly decreasing number, of high school students, fewer of whom are going to four-year colleges these days."

Minnesota Office of Higher Education Commissioner Dennis Olson anticipates somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 students will qualify for North Star Promise.

The lawmakers who created the program said they had two major goals: Reduce long-standing racial disparities in higher education by making college more affordable and persuade more Minnesota students to attend college in the state.

For years, Minnesota has lost more college-aged students to surrounding states than it has brought in, and they don't always return. The state saw a net loss of about 156,000 young adults to other states in a 15-year span, according to data from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce,, a trend that could signal trouble for the state's economy.

State officials are closely watching to see how North Star Promise affects enrollment at schools that have seen drastic declines — and whether new, competing programs in North Dakota or elsewhere might affect the rollout.

"Will it maybe dilute keeping all those students at a Minnesota state school? Sure," said Sen. Robert Kupec, DFL-Moorhead, who helped create the program. "But in the end, this is really good for students."

Since Minnesota created North Star Promise, leaders at public colleges across the Midwest are doubling down on messages highlighting competitive tuition rates and scholarships that could bring down the costs even further.

"It doesn't compete with free. We can't do that," said Katharine Johnson Suski, assistant vice president and executive director of admissions for Iowa State University. "What we find, though, is that the students who are coming from Minnesota to Iowa State are coming for a reason," she said, noting that programs in engineering, business and computer science tend to draw the largest number of Minnesotans.

Schools likely won't be affected equally. In recent years, about 13% of new Iowa State students came from Minnesota. Nearly half the students at North Dakota State University typically come from Minnesota.

College leaders in both Minnesota and North Dakota expect recruitment challenges in the years ahead — though for opposite reasons. The number of high school graduates in Minnesota will likely decline, due in part to a dip in birth rates after the Great Recession. North Dakota expects to see an increase in students that will prompt more college recruiting in their area.

Recruiters historically tried to entice a student from North Dakota so they could say they had one from each state, Janelle Kilgore, University of North Dakota vice provost for strategic enrollment management, said in a public meeting this summer.

"Now, they're trying to get five, 10, 15, 20," she said. "We can't afford to lose our students, to export them out."

North Dakota State University's free tuition program announced earlier this month is funded for only one year.

"We'll continue to look both internally and externally to see if we can continue to fund this longer-term," said Seinquis Leinen, the college's senior director of strategic enrollment management.

It's too early to tell whether they might receive state support. The North Dakota Legislature had already closed its session when Minnesotans created their program, and the political dynamics are different in each state. Democrats control state government in Minnesota, while Republicans have the majorities in North Dakota.

"It's a high discussion point. We won't deny that," said Rep. Cynthia Schreiber-Beck, a Republican from Wahpeton, N.D. She wants to see a more detailed analysis of which Minnesotans are choosing to attend school in North Dakota and what's driving them there.

"How much impact is it going to have?" Schreiber-Beck asked. "That's a hard measurement at this point in time."

Jesus Gonzalez, the student body president at Concordia College in Moorhead, was thrilled when the school announced a free tuition program: "It's a step towards affordable college, not just for students like me but for everybody."

Gonzalez, who is from Minneapolis, said a robust scholarship was the key factor in his own college decision. The reaction on campus has largely been one of excitement, he said, but some current students are disappointed it wasn't available for them.

High school students making their college decisions now say cost and location are factors they consider — though not always in the ways lawmakers might expect.

Alex Lucas, a senior at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, settled on North Dakota State University to study nursing even before it announced its new scholarship.

"I didn't want to be too far away from my family," Lucas said, adding that he also considered the culture on campus and other financial aid.

Freeman, the senior from Moorhead, has already been accepted to North Dakota State University. She's working on her application to Columbia University. Her mother hopes she'll stay close by. Her father's open to Columbia but would need to work more to help cover the costs.

She has lots of questions about scholarships and what each school will cover. She wants to make a decision but "I don't know how much money I have to pay for this, and which one I could go to."

Staff writer Jessie Van Berkel and data editor MaryJo Webster contributed to this story.