Setting a course for higher ed

Mario Martinez and Brandy Smith

Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 | 2 a.m.

Recent events in Nevada suggest that higher education is on the minds of policymakers and business and community leaders. Now is exactly the right time to think big-picture about Nevada higher education.

The Nevada System of Higher Education endured drastic cuts in the past legislative session, and the debate has since focused on how much funding is needed to have a truly effective system of higher education.

Regent Ron Knecht recently proposed that we focus on per-student measures of funding to determine whether Nevada adequately invests in its higher education system. Knecht derided a Brookings Institution study that concluded Nevada significantly underfunds its institutions since it did not use his suggested measures. In addition, Senate Bill 374 created a committee to study the method by which Nevada funds its higher education system, which resulted in a call for proposals to procure a consultant to help with that task. Finally, a barrage of recent articles has raised the issue of how much our universities should receive and what is a fair distribution within the institutions that comprise NSHE — in essence, it is the recurring north-south debate and how much UNR receives versus UNLV.

The funding focus on all sides and by various stakeholders is well-intentioned and meant to stimulate necessary public debate, but it is small-picture. We must begin the hard work that allows us to see the forest for the trees. Funding is only a means to an end — a tool to help create the path toward some larger goals. But what are the goals for Nevada higher education?

Our 20 years of combined research in state higher education policy and change management indicate that lasting, productive change in state higher education systems starts with a commitment to a common set of policy goals. Some states have thoughtfully worked to set goals that connect higher education to the economic and social well-being of their citizenry. Republicans and Democrats, business, government and higher education leaders have worked together to create a common starting point by defining policy goals. Once the goals are in place, discussions of funding methodology, funding levels, or even program closures or mergers become more meaningful.

The process to define policy goals for higher education starts with elected officials and other state leaders. Governors and legislators will naturally have competing interests and opinions, and those ideas need to be brought to the surface through a systematic process that allows discussion and debate. The task is never easy because state leaders often have implicit or assumed goals but not explicit ones. That is why process is important, to surface assumptions, unspoken priorities and aspirational goals of all major stakeholders. Only then is it possible to converge on a common set of explicit goals.

If we cannot find any semblance of agreement at the state level, then any “changes,” such as implementing a new funding methodology for higher education, will be cosmetic at best. Hiring a consultant to provide advice on such matters, without some guiding goals and priorities, is a waste of money. Our research clearly shows that states without a coherent and unified higher education policy agenda produce inferior results in terms of participation completion and various efficiency measures. Getting to a policy agenda is messy business, but this is the crux of the work that sets the stage for everything else.

Leaders of the Nevada System of Higher Education have an important role to play in defining a policy agenda. Effective system-level postsecondary leaders across the nation set the tempo for statewide conversations by creating starting points for discussion with policymakers and business and industry leaders.

Chancellors and presidents must take great care, however, to refrain from any form of the tired old cliché that “we are underfunded” and “we need more money.” Higher education funding is a challenge most states are facing, and, for whatever reason, institutions are not going to be replenished to pre-recession levels in the foreseeable future. Besides, arguing for more funding absent any policy goals is an exercise in futility: There are plenty of opinions but no solutions or opportunities for agreement since there are no target goals to shoot for.

States in which policymakers, business and industry leaders, and higher education administrators productively collaborate also pay attention to outcomes and measurements. Public higher education in every state has been under steady pressure for many years now to “prove its worth.” Although some outcomes associated with a college education are not quantifiable, there are others that are, and we should not ignore them. One example of an institution that is aggressively trying to measure its own progress is the College of Southern Nevada. CSN is working hard to understand and measure completion.

The seven institutions and one research institute that comprise NSHE must also be strategic in the process of converging on a set of policy goals. Our research finds that the states where policymakers and institutional administrators have good relationships are the states where institutional presidents and their staffs desist from approaching legislators individually in efforts to promote their parochial interests. Instead, presidents typically meet together and discuss their challenges and concerns and then approach policymakers as a unified group.

In the end, how Nevada chooses to fund its higher education system (funding methodology), at what level it chooses to fund it (actual appropriations to the institutions) and who gets what (UNR vs. UNLV) are certainly important discussion points. But let’s remember that funding is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. If state and higher education leaders are serious about taking our system to the next level, we need to step back and make the time to talk big-picture. We need to define policy goals for the entire state. A coherent set of policy goals constitutes a policy agenda for Nevada higher education. A policy agenda will make discussions of any means, including funding, more meaningful and less prone to shouting matches or media arguments that in the end solve nothing.

Dr. Mario Martinez is professor of higher education at UNLV. Dr. Brandy Smith is the director of finance and administration at the Association for the Study of Higher Education.