Inadequate funding from Tallahassee may leave our public universities with no choice but to cap enrollments and reduce opportunities for state students.
Published June 29, 2003
Florida's public universities have suffered $490-million in budget cuts in the past dozen years, but the loss of money isn't as demeaning as the ongoing game of enrollment peekaboo. For the past two years, lawmakers have funded our universities while covering their eyes to new students; in the fall, new students show up but their state dollars do not.
Any business that operated this way would go belly-up, which is why university presidents are being drawn to the only responsible course of action left to them: freeze future enrollment. University of Central Florida president John Hitt, whose institution is no stranger to growth, made the proposal at a presidents' meeting on Wednesday, and the heads around the table nodded in approval. Between last fall and this coming one, state universities will have added 22,000 new students for whom they get paid roughly 23 cents on the dollar.
As University of West Florida president John Cavanaugh put it (reported by the Daytona Beach News-Journal): "You can't keep selling a product at a dead loss."
You can't breed excellence in higher education that way either, yet the Legislature, the governor, the education commissioner, the state Board of Education and the university Board of Governors all seem unwilling to face that reality. This year, as lawmakers were cutting $40-million more from universities, the only new program they created was a financial aid plan for students who want to attend private, for-profit colleges.
That grant program, which its sponsors call Access to Better Learning and Education, received no money for the coming year, but its creation in a period of such financial duress was nonetheless puzzling. The University of Phoenix, an online university with a reputation as a diploma mill, and Keiser College are among the private colleges that stand to benefit. Their lobbyists (including Georgia McKeown, former top assistant to Education Commissioner Jim Horne) argued they deserve tax money because they, too, educate college students.
Sen. Charles Clary, R-Destin, told the Gainesville Sun: "With the growth we're seeing and the demand we're seeing for space in community colleges and universities, this may help with people who are trying to get into college."
Another way to help would be to invest enough money in public universities so they aren't forced to turn away students. Another way to meet demand would be to provide more supply. With the exception of Florida Gulf Coast, the state hasn't built a new university in more than three decades - while the population has more than doubled.
This growing neglect of universities is far from benign. State funding per student has dropped 21 percent in the past four years, and Florida ranks 45th among states in the rate at which it grants bachelor's degrees to its residents. The lack of political and financial support was among the reasons Richard Briggs, a University of Florida professor who served on the Board of Governors, decided to leave for Texas. "You come to Florida," Briggs said recently, "the budget's in the toilet and no one cares. We're just stagnant."
On Thursday, Gov. Jeb Bush was asked to comment on the university presidents' plan, and his response was instructive. Bush, whose own budget would have cut $71-million more from universities than the Legislature ultimately did, said he opposes an enrollment freeze. His advice to presidents: "I hope the flexibility that they have and the reserves that they have will allow them to get through this year." Does he honestly think the universities are sitting on a secret mound of unspent cash?
This is the kind of business practice that threatens to bankrupt higher education in more ways than one.
