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MSU President, Randy Dunn

Greetings for this week.

As promised: This is the last in a three-part set of columns examining some of the fiscal and environmental context surrounding big decisions we?re going to make as a Campus Community over the coming months?tough decisions to determine a changed business/financial model for the University to absorb a potential $3.2 million cut in state support as of July 1.

You can always find places where it?s worse, though.? The most extreme example I?ve noted of late is Pennsylvania, where their state system colleges could lose a third of their state funding?and this is on top of a 20 percent cut in 2011!? It?s hard to argue with the proposition that the Keystone State is on a mission to de-fund public higher education in an era of shrinking public resources.? Things aren?t much different a little closer to home.? Missouri?s Governor Jay Nixon has proposed a budget which includes an across-the-board reduction of 12.5 percent in funding for all public institutions of higher education from what they are receiving this year.

In comparison, things don?t sound quite as bad for Murray State?a 6.4% loss of our state appropriation has been proposed?but $3.2 million is still $3.2 million.? And while it?s a luxury to have this long to figure it out?we?ll only have roughly a year or less to decide how we address that eventuality here.

I talked at some length last week about the criticality of ensuring in all that is to come, then, that our core mission of teaching and learning remain central and strong.? The pressure is going to be on us financially?there is no doubt about that.? To give you just a quick illustration: With the current level of state cuts proposed, it would take approximately a 5 percent increase in tuition and fees?simply to maintain where we are today.? This does not take into account any of the fixed cost increases we know we?ll have to address for next year?covering insurance, retirement contributions, mandated tuition waivers, technology, salary adjustments for such things as promotions and the hourly staff enhancement plan?and the list goes on.? As you can see, we?re not going to be able to build a sustainable future model based solely on tuition increases and enrollment growth.

So yes, we have some decisions to make.

However, in doing so, we have to constantly be on guard that we not fall into the trap of sacrificing the quality and excellence which MSU is known for, in the pursuit of quick income and short-term gains.? This is what so many for-profits (some even celebrate their owners as skilled entrepreneurs!) ?have done to the extreme detriment of their students?reaping huge profits from anyone who has access to federal grants and loans for delivering something that calls itself a ?university.?? Those students at the for-profits are sold the idea that a degree is some equivalent currency that any entity can dole out based upon its own rules about fields of study, faculty qualifications, expectations for learning, and any other variable it may choose to define in whatever way it wishes.

Now this is not to say that every for-profit institution is evil?or merely interested in maximizing profits?but a degree only has meaning and value when it is the symbol of a tangible developed ability, training, and disposition toward thinking.? Anything that threatens to take us even a little bit off that path has to be avoided; we can?t parrot the for-profits or other similarly weak higher education institutions as a strategy to work ourselves out of the impending fiscal situation we find ourselves facing.? Learning to think, instead of just being exposed to a set of skills that employers are increasingly questioning the relevancy of, differentiates universities like MSU that operate for a larger societal purpose?and not just for a profit.

We owe our students that pledge to maintain quality and integrity first and foremost.? If we don?t, over the long haul, incrementally, like so many of the for-profits we see around the country?there is a wreckage created that is tragic as those graduates leave with degrees only worth the value of the paper they?re printed on?but still chased by creditors demanding loan payments.? The Education Trust has reported that for-profit students leave (not usually graduating, given their average 22 percent graduation rates for entering freshmen) with four times the debt of traditional college students?yet often seeking jobs that don?t exist given their chosen ?areas of study.?

Nationally, there is data to show that employers much prefer hiring graduates from public universities like ours (even more so than the Ivies by some reckonings).? And employers will continue to value the qualities nurtured in campus-based programs, many still delivered in actual classrooms, labs, and studios by real faculty.

As I stated last week, I?m all for following business tenets and practices to make us more productive and efficient in using the many resources we?re provided.? But in the end, it is the quality of the education that must win out?not the profit.? We shall all try to our best to remember that as we wrestle with some challenging days ahead of us.

Have a great week.

Randy Dunn

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Source: http://www.roundaboutmurray.com/?p=1470

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