[Vision2020] The Crisis in Idaho Higher Education

[Donovan Arnold]

I think the crisis in education is that education doesn't prepare you for the real world or give you skills needed for the current job market. The current education system prepares you for the world of 1810, not 2010. 
 
The reason the education fees keep going up is the University keeps asking for them to be raised and the legislature votes to do so it can cut state funding to the University and give the money to their pet projects and tax cuts to business interests represented by lobbyists in Boise. Or in Richie Risch's case, tax cuts to himself. 
 
Education needs to stop trying to be all things to all students. The University spends too much money on housing, food, recreation, athletics, medical, fancy technology, unneeded buildings, outreach, and social arts degrees that have no jobs in the marketplace. It needs to spend more on skills needed in the current workplace. 
 
It also needs to redo how it does financial aid. It should award financial aid based on the demand for the degree. It should also change the way it collects student loans, with a simple 15% of disposable income for 15 years of employment after the first five. Graduating students don't make enough their first five years out of college, and have a difficult time making ends meet. 
 
Donovan Arnold
 


--- On Tue, 10/20/09, nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:


From: nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com>
Subject: [Vision2020] The Crisis in Idaho Higher Education
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 5:20 PM


Good Morning Visionaries:

This is my radio commentary/column for the week.  The long version will be given as a talk at ISU sponsored by the ISU Faculty Senate and the ISU Federation of Teachers.  The full version can be read at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/HighEdCrisis.htm

I discovered some staggering statistics, and the one that is most outrageous is the 403 percent increase in UI student fees since 1986.  Even with a rough adjustment for inflation it is still an inexusable 200 percent increase.  Higher education appropriations since 1988 have risen only 159 percent with no adjustment for inflation.

Nick Gier, President, Higher Education Council, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO

THE CRISIS IN IDAHO HIGHER EDUCATION

The crisis in Idaho higher education is not only a financial one but it is one of governance. In the late 1960s faculty all over the nation enjoyed a burst of new confidence as they elected their colleagues to faculty senates..  

The experiment in "shared governance" has been a frustrating experience, because college deans can veto any faculty decision, presidents can overturn any campus decision, and the state Board of Education can veto any presidential decision.
  
Several years ago, a professor at a board meeting mentioned the phrase "faculty governance," and a board member exclaimed: "Faculty governance?  I thought that is what we did!" Over 36 years I remember at least a dozen faculty votes that were ignored by the state board.  

Sometimes we do succeed, as in the time we convinced the state board to rescind automatic 5-year tenure reviews. Even more dramatic was the recent withdrawal of revisions to state board policies that would have given campus presidents unchecked power to change contracts and to reduce staff.  This was, however, purely the power of protest and not recognition of our right to govern ourselves.

Over 21 years Idaho general fund revenues have increased 318 percent, but higher education budgets have increased only 201 percent. In 1988 higher education took 16 percent of the budget but in 2009, it garnered only 10 percent.  

Adjusting for inflation, tuition on American campuses has doubled since 1980, while salaries for middle class families have remained stagnant.  Since 1986 UI student fees have gone from $1,040 per year to $5, 236, a whopping 403 percent increase.  A rough adjustment for inflation would bring that down to a still unacceptable 200 percent.  

Thirty years ago Pell grants to needy students covered 72 percent of their college costs, but today that percentage has dropped to 38.  It is estimated that as many as 400,000 students choose not to attend college because of financial reasons.

The Reagan revolution convinced millions of Americans that government is bad and that increasing taxes is a mortal sin, but this has resulted in a massive failure to invest in both human capital and physical infrastructure.  

In an editorial in the Lewiston Morning Tribune Marty Trillhaase questions the wisdom of reducing higher education budgets during a recession and when enrollment is up on all our campuses. 

When Jim Risch was governor in 2006, he signed a bill that cut property taxes by $260 million and added a penny to the sales tax that raised $210 million. As Trillhaase explains: "Big business and wealthy families netted a $60 million tax cut." But Idahoans earning less than $134,000 paid $10 million more in sales tax than they saved in property tax.

I therefore have a modest proposal: there should be an income tax surcharge on all Idahoans who make more than $134,000 until we make it through this financial crisis.

Responding to the crisis in higher education, Governor Butch Otter recently declared that in reference to China and India "we can’t outbirth them, but we can outsmart them." With regard to China Otter is actually wrong: China’s fertility rate is 1.8 children per woman while our 2 children per mother is one of the highest in the industrialized world.  Although certainly capable, Idaho students will not outsmart anyone unless much more investment is made in higher education.

The U.S. has the highest college and university dropout rate in the world. We are the only industrialized nation with a declining college completion rate.  It is estimated that at the current rate the number of American college graduates will drop from 40 to 29 percent.  We will then face the depressing fact that for the first time in history Americans will be less educated than their parents.

President Obama is doing the right thing.  He has proposed $12 billion over ten years to improve our community colleges and enable them to accommodate an increasing number of new students.
Obama has set an ambitious goal: “By 2020 America, will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” If we do not make this goal, I will blame shortsighted and tax averse Congresses and Presidents who for thirty years have failed to make necessary investments in human capital.
    

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