Tapping Into the Well - Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed

Grant Shaft, a member of the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education and its immediate past chair, gets funny looks from other states' board members when he talks about his system’s plans. North Dakota, unlike almost every other state, is poised to make an unprecedented spending increase in its higher education system. North Dakota’s sudden influx of money is the result of an oil boom in the western part of the state, driven largely by technological developments in hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” that led to the tapping of new oil wells. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/09/oil-boom-and-trust-conservative-lawmakers-means-more-money-north-dakota-colleges