(St.Paul, MN)  --  The House Environment, Natural Resources and Ag Finance Committee advanced a bill that would fund the Minnesota Agriculture Leadership Council 1-million dollars a year for the next two years, to pay for business management programs for farmers.  Jerry Schoenfeld of the Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators says the cost of the programs administered through MnScu keeps going up.  He says credits have gone from 75 dollars to about 175 and many of these non-traditional students don't qualify for financial aid. 
That means without the help of state funding, it would cost the average farm management program student almost double at 3-thousand dollars a year.