Cuts endanger fragile university system

William Cobb

Sunday, March 6, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget for the 2011-2013 biennium proposes a reduction in general fund support for the Nevada System of Higher Education of $162 million. And that amount is dependent on the Legislature accepting the governor’s proposal to transfer some $121 million from local governments, without which the total reduction could approach

$280 million!

It would be catastrophic if the university system had to absorb total cuts of this magnitude. Since fiscal year 2009-11, universities and community colleges have already had their budgets reduced some 18.4 percent. Nevertheless, the university system will likely again step up to the plate and bear its fair share of the state’s “misery” to attempt to reduce this enormous deficit through salary reductions and tuition and fee increases.

First, if state salaries are reduced 5 percent in place of the furlough as the governor proposed, the university system could again follow suit. However, because most university system employees participated in the state furlough this year (and last), higher education salaries are already reduced 4.6 percent this year (due to the furloughs); any additional savings from a

5 percent cut does not go very far to close the $162 million gap.

Furthermore, declining funding and decreasing salaries make our faculty prime targets for recruitment elsewhere. Michael Young was a departmental director at the Desert Research Institute. The continued reductions of staff support and salaries convinced him to accept a comparable position at the University of Texas, one of 21 faculty who have departed the institute since 2008. The institute generates some $45.5 million in research grants on only $8.2 million in state support. One DRI researcher received $97,000 in startup funding and leveraged that into $22 million over several years.

Utah recently lured an award-winning professor from UNR (a chemical/metallurgical scientist with some eight patents) whose subspecialty was renewable energy. With him go grants that supported institutional infrastructure, other faculty, graduate assistants and student employees (who spend money locally and pay taxes).

DRI’s Young had brought in about $3 million via grants during the previous two years before he left. UNLV, which has suffered some $50 million in cuts over the past four years and has some 400 vacant positions, recently lost a star faculty member in a nationally ranked department. She politely declined any discussions of retention, stating that while it broke her heart to leave, she preferred to be in a venue which cares about education.

Therefore, it is important to understand that salary reductions and loss of departmental support can have broad ramifications which well exceed short terms savings.

Second, the university system could also consider another round of tuition and fee hikes — which have already risen some 49 percent since 2006-07 — to bring them in line with other Mountain West institutions. Nevada nonresident tuition and fees are $18,915, already some $700 above the median. Note that state law prohibits the university system from charging Nevada residents tuition, which reflects the Legislature’s intent that higher education should be affordable.

Instead, Nevada residents are assessed fees (that non-residents also pay). If course fees were raised again, a possible additional $36 million might be generated for the biennium, which assumes (1) that all students stay in higher education in the face of increased fees and tuition, and (2) that all fee increases remain with the institution instead of the status quo where a percentage reverts back to the state general fund.

Aggregating salary cuts with tuition increases might generate $40-50 million in reductions, but that still leaves the university system to cut another $100 million-plus. Absorbing the remaining cuts, as Chancellor Klaich has stated, would cause the university system to be a “fundamentally different organization.” Student enrollments would be severely restricted, and university departments, state and community colleges and professional schools would face being “mothballed.”

The residual cuts could be devastating to those Nevadans who are seeking to improve their lives through higher education. It would also be impossible for higher education to develop an educated workforce and provide the technological and entrepreneurial foundation for economic diversification. As well-respected Las Vegas business leader Michael Saltman has noted, “the economic future of Nevada hinges on the quality of higher education.”

William Cobb is a member of the Nevada Board of Regents, which oversees the Nevada System of Higher Education.