The University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC) has informed the City of Crookston that they are suspending their aviation program. The program currently has 11 students, five of whom are nearing completion while the other six will likely have to complete some required flight hours in Grand Forks.
UMC has partnered with UND Aerospace, who will continue to provide the instruction at the Crookston Airport through the end of the calendar year said UMC Vice-Chancellor, John Hoffman. “We’ve just been working on this here recently,” said Hoffman. “We continually reassess our programs and have had some conversations with UND Aerospace on this. In particular, with a couple of changes coming through the FAA, we started to respond with some curricular changes this past year so that we could meet that. But as we got in further between the regulations, equipment upgrades needed and a little bit of infrastructure, it was just going to be a very expensive endeavor. We spent some time talking with a couple of key supporters in the program and have decided that what’s best is to suspend new enrollment into the program. We will not be taking any new students. For all of the students currently in the program, they will get all of their courses. UND will continue to provide all instruction at the Crookston airport through the end of this calendar year. If there are students that still need flight hours after that, they’ll be able to do that through Grand Forks. Because we anticipate that there may be some hassles for students were going to provide some additional scholarship dollars that we have through an aviation scholarship for the students to help make sure they are successful in finishing the program.”
There are shy of 150 alumni to the UMC Aviation program which also is on the low-end for current enrollment said, Hoffman. “We’re a little on the low-end right now,” said Hoffman. “We have five students who are just finishing the last phase of their commercial pilot portion of the program. And then another six students who are finishing up their private license and getting ready to transition into the commercial part. It’s that second part where the Ag aviation, Natural Resources aviation, and Law Enforcement emphasizes come in. So, we have five that are just finishing up and six that will be with us for a couple more years.”
For the program to remain competitive, the university likely would have to invest in a new airplane and flight simulator. Hoffman said they have provided the students and facilities in their partnership with UND while the UND Aerospace program has supplied the airplanes. “We have contributed the students and the facilities,” said Hoffman. “One of the primary pieces that we have accessed through UND Aerospace is the airplanes. Quite frankly more and more of the work is being done through simulators, and so students in these programs are now completing programs both behind simulators, and in the air, for us to remain competitive as a program, we’d have to look at a new plane as well as some type of simulator. At that, it becomes a very expensive part of the proposition. I think that UND has been a great partner for us supporting the program over the years. It’s just at a place where the economies of scale are changing, and the partnership as it has worked in the past is not going to be able to take us through the next generation of flight instruction requirements.”
UMC and UND Aerospace will vacate the Crookston Airport in December, with any further instruction beginning in January taking place out of the Grand Forks airport. “Today I’ve had conversations with the Mayor, several members of the City Council, the Airport Commission, the Airport Manager,” said Hoffman. “We’re trying to make sure that we’re being upfront with everybody that’s involved. Along with UND in our partnership, we will continue to use the airport through the end of the calendar year, and then after that, we will no longer be doing much at the Crookston airport. At that point, the work, anything that would occur would be over in Grand Forks.”
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