Associated Press

Higher Education officials say they have fixed a program that gave North Dakota's private college students larger taxpayer-funded grants than public college students.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said 572 private-college students at Jamestown College, the University of Mary in Bismarck and Trinity Bible College in Ellendale will not have to pay back the extra money they got last fall.

"At the time the grants were distributed for the fall semester, the board was complying with the legislative mandate," Stenehjem told state university Chancellor Robert Potts.

The Legislature had approved the money for the three private schools. But Stenehjem said reserving state financial aid for students in private colleges probably is unconstitutional because it supports religious schools and shortchanges public college students,

Peggy Wipf, director of student aid for the state university system, told the Board of Higher Education's Budget and Finance Committee on Monday that each student who qualifies for the state grant program, whether at a public or private college, will get $300 next spring. The grants, totaling $600 annually, are awarded according to financial need.

Last fall, based on the legislative action, the board approved $1,000 annual grants to qualifying private-college students, while keeping the $600 maximum for students in North Dakota's public and American Indian tribal colleges.

Potts said it would be impractical to try to collect the extra money given last fall to the private college students.

The Board of Higher Education also declined to award $150,000 in taxpayer money approved by the Legislature to support doctoral programs at the University of Mary. Stenehjem's September opinion said that provision also is probably unconstitutional.

Separately, Budget and Finance Committee members were told Monday that a contingency fund for helping university campuses educate students with disabilities probably will be outstripped by demand before the current two-year budget cycle ends on June 30, 2007.

The $125,000 allocation received about $72,000 in requests by mid-October. Vice Chancellor Laura Glatt said a full-time interpreter or signer for a single student can cost more than $30,000 a year.