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Higher Ed News Roundup

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The below are some of the non-Washington State higher education budget and policy stories that made the news this week:

  • Arizona: Senate Bill 1115 was passed out of Appropriations Committee after midnight on Tuesday. The hastily considered bill surprised many and would effect dramatic change in Arizona higher education should it make its way to law, including replacing the current state funding to institutions with a voucher system that would provide an as yet unspecified amount of money directly to the student, abolishing the Arizona Board of Regents and creating individual governing boards at each institution, and allowing for the addition of more state institutions, including making ASU’s East Mesa campus a freestanding Polytechnic University. Committee chair and bill sponsor, Andy Biggs, said, “I’m trying to get at greater autonomy and greater stability and flexibility to the university heads by having their own boards of trustees.” The universities oppose this measure.
  • Georgia: Budget pressures in Georgia make deep cuts and eligibility changes to the innovative HOPE Scholarship program likely. The current program is the most generous state financial aid program in the nation as it has no income caps and provides the full cost of an undergraduate degree at any public institution in Georgia for all students with a 3.0 or above high school gpa. Over one third of all resident students currently enrolled in Georgia public institutions benefit from the program.
  • Ohio: Inside Higher Ed pondered the role politics played in the resignation of University System of Ohio Chancellor Eric Fingerhut more than a year before his term was up.
  • Wisconsin: The revelation that Governor Walker was set to propose increased autonomy for UW Madison led to some fallout with the UW System Regents who support increased flexibility, but are troubled by the idea of separating UW Madison from the system. A special Regents meeting to discuss the proposal was called for today. In response, UW Madison produced a summary of the proposal and its anticipated effects to help quell opposition.

Also note that NYT reporter David Leonhardt published an interview with the authors of the recent book Why Does College Cost So Much?. We were pretty honored that Leonhardt recommended our summary of the book in the introduction of the piece!

University of Wisconsin Poised to Receive Greater Autonomy?

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Current protests in Wisconsin have dominated press coverage of Governor Scott Walker’s proposed 2011-13 state budget this week. Lost in the shuffle may have been news that the proposal contained a provision that would lead to greater autonomy for Wisconsin’s largest public institution of higher education, the University of Wisconsin at Madison. UW Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin has requested that the UW System Board of Regents not oppose the move, which she argues would be essential to protecting excellence and access for the state’s flagship campus.

Potential legislation based on the Governor’s proposal is expected to be introduced by Republicans and would be likely to include the following freedoms for UW Madison:

  • Tuition setting authority and freedom to manage all funds
  • Authority to implement institutional budget without System approval
  • Ability to recruit, hire and retain employees outside of the state system
  • New flexibility in purchasing
  • Authority to handle its own building projects

The University has sought such freedoms from the state for years, and the article suggests that the chancellor has been working for over a year to craft the current proposal, which she calls the New Badger Partnership.

For more information about this topic, read our recent OPB brief on institutional autonomy and the varying degrees to which it currently exists at the UW Seattle and our Global Challenge State peers.

Virginia Close to Passing Major Higher Ed Reform

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Virginia’s Governor, Robert McConnell, endorsed all of the recommendations made by the Higher Education Commission he created last year to explore policy options for higher education reform. The resulting Virginia Higher Education Act of 2011 has moved quickly through both the House and Senate and may soon be on its way to the Governor. The bill provides $50 million in new funding for higher education institutions in Virginia, a UW Global Challenge State peer, as a ‘downpayment’ on the lofty reform goals outlined by the bill, including:

  • Producing 100,000 additional degrees over the next 15 years.
  • Providing incentives to increase enrollment of Virginia residents by creating target resident enrollment goals for institutions.
  • Creating incentives for improving retention, graduation, and time-to-degree.
  • Crafting new performance agreements focused on policy outcomes.
  • Enhancing efficiency by increasing institutional managerial autonomy.
  • Creating a higher education rainy day fund for use in economic crisis.
  • Establishing objective, peer-based funding goals.
  • Increasing state support and reducing reliance on tuition revenue.
  • Restoring state aid for students attending non-public Virginia colleges.
  • Increasing state need-based aid for low and middle income students.
  • Increasing year-round use of physical and instructional resources.
  • Increasing use of technology in the classroom, and increasing online course offerings.
  • Increasing enrollment in dual credit programs to shorten time-to-degree.
  • Creating public/private partnerships to increase STEM degree attainment, and facilitate commercialization.
  • Creating a catalog of R&D assets and activities so that the state can align investments with existing strengths/activities.
  • Creating an emerging technologies fund to recruit faculty, purchase equipment and provide seed funding.

The Washington State legislature is considering its own Higher Education Funding Task Force bill right now. Make sure to follow its progress via our UW BillTracker (bill number 5717).

Another Budget Blow to Public Higher Ed in CA

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Today, newly elected California Governor Jerry Brown released his first proposed state budget. The 2011-12 budget proposes over $12.5 billion in spending cuts and over $12 billion in new revenue generation to close an existing deficit of over $25 billion.

Cuts include 10 percent pay reductions for state workers, cuts to Medi-Cal and Welfare, and, notably, deep cuts to higher education only months after the Legislature approved a 2010-11 budget that restored some previously cut funding for public institutions.

Specifically, the budget proposes cutting the UC system by $500 million (17%), the CSU system by $500 million (18%), and community colleges by $400 million (6.5%).

UC President Mark Yudof notes that, if enacted, this budget would mean the state’s annual contribution per student would be less than the portion paid by students and their families for the first time in California’s history. We crossed this same threshold in Washington State for the first time in 2009.

UC Commission Proposes Familiar Strategies for Cutting Costs

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The University of California Commission on the Future recently released its final report addressing potential solutions for keeping public higher education in California vibrant in the face of declining resources.

A group that included regents, administrators, faculty and students, the Commission’s 50 page report recommended a host of actions for UC to consider, including:

  • Expand on the somewhat controversial UC Online Instruction Pilot Project
  • Develop and offer three year degree programs where feasible
  • Increase nonresident student enrollment from 6% to 10% to generate additional tuition revenue
  • Ease the community college student transfer process

The Commission also acknowledged that in extreme financial circumstances the UC system might need to consider raising both tuition and nonresident enrollment even more sharply, and consider decreasing resident enrollment and/or financial aid.

The Commission rejected other popular proposals such as differentiated tuition by major or class status, and the practice of cohort tuition pricing.

The UC Commission’s recommendations are familiar to anyone keeping up with current discourse on higher education reforms. While the recommendations may have considerable merit, none constitute the re-imagining recently proposed by one of UC’s own, John Aubrey Douglass.

California Projects Annual Deficits of $20b Through 2016

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A new report from California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), California’s Fiscal Outlook, details current California state budget projections through at least 2016. The LAO projects that CA will have to solve at least a $25.4 billion deficit for 2011-12, and will continue to face budget gaps of at least $20 billion per year through 2015-16.

While analysts are clear that doomsday scenarios threatening the collapse and/or bankruptcy of the state are not realistic, they do emphasize the importance of lawmakers and citizens making painful choices now to avoid placing a massive burden on future generations of Californians. The LAO recommends a multi-year approach to addressing the state’s structural deficits, including making difficult choices on increasing revenue while making additional spending cuts. Detailed estimates are provided for each major area of government spending– see pages 29-30 for higher education.

California is unique in many ways, but the choices facing the state and its citizens are, though perhaps grander in scale, very similar to those being faced by states across the country, including Washington.

Latest NCES Report Provides Data on Higher Ed Employees

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The National Center For Education Statistics (NCES) is a part of the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. Every US University governed by Title IV of the Higher Education Act (federal student aid programs) is required to submit annual data to NCES via nine surveys that cover topics such as pricing, admissions, enrollment, employment, financial aid, graduation/completion, institutional finance and more.

NCES releases regular reports synthesizing the massive amount of data that institutions submit. The latest, Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2009, and Salaries of Full-Time Instructional Staff, 2009-10, summarizes national trends in higher education employment. Some of the findings include:

  • Institutions reported employing (not including medical schools or hospitals) 3.8 million employees– 2.4 million full-time and 1.4 million part-time.
  • Of the 2.4 million full-time employees,  1.4 million were classified as professional (see report for definition), 46% of whom had faculty status: 21% with tenure, 9% on the tenure-track, and 17% not on the tenure-track or at an institution without tenure.
  • Of full-time faculty with tenure, 65% were men while 35% were women.
  • Of full-time faculty with tenure, 81% were White, 8% were Asian, 5% were African American, and 4% were Hispanic.

You can explore more NCES reports, facts, and figures online. Additionally, you can build your own queries and pull up institutional data based on any set of universities you identify.

CA to Vote on Budget that would Restore Some UC Funding

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The California State Legislature is set  to vote on the budget for FY10-11 (current fiscal year) today; 99 days after the start of the fiscal year.  Based on negotiations among the gang of five (governor and majority and minority leaders from senate and assembly) the budget should pass.

The starting problem for California was a $17.9 billion shortfall, To ‘solve’ this problem the state did the following:

  • Expenditure Reductions  -$7.5
  • Use of one time Federal Funds  $5.3
  • Additional Revenues $2.5
  • Fund Shifts, Other Revenues  $2.8
  • Alternative Funding $0.5
  • Baseline Workload Adjustments -$0.2
  • Total Solutions $18.3
  • Final Reserve $0.4

The $18 billion deficit represents ~20 percent of the state’s $87.5 billion general fund, compared to an estimated 2011-2013 biennial shortfall in Washington State of $4.5 billion, ~14 percent of a $31 billion biennial budget (pre mid-year cuts in FY 11).

One area California chose not to reduce was its university systems.  The University of California received an increase of $370 million in new state funding – an increase of 14 percent over their FY10 state funding base of $2.6 billion.  The funding is broken out as follows:

  • $199m in permanent dollars as a start of restoring the base
  • $106m in temporary funds (with a stated goal of converting these to permanent funds)
  • $51m in permanent funds for new enrollment
  • $14m in permanent funds for health benefit cost increases

While one could argue that this California budget proposal is based on overly optimistic revenue projections, it is clear that they have made a loud statement on the importance of their public universities.