It seems every year that state funding of higher education becomes an even more critical part of the operation of our state-supported institutions and programs. This year is no different, with so many states facing critical budget issues due to decreased revenue from the recession. What does this mean for higher education and your career? This month, we addressed these questions to one of the foremost experts in this subject, Paul Lingenfelter, President of the State Higher Education Executive Officers association (SHEEO).
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Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Dr. Lingenfelter, you currently serve as the president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) association.1 Would you please briefly explain what the role of the association is, along with what your primary focus and responsibilities are as president?
Paul E. Lingenfelter, SHEEO: The members of SHEEO are the chief executives of statewide governing and coordinating boards. Our role is to help them and the states they serve develop and sustain excellent systems of higher education through annual conferences, policy studies, and a variety of related professional development activities. Our primary focus is to increase educational attainment in each of the United States, and our work touches on everything related to that priority — finance, educational standards, accountability for student learning, financial assistance, governance, and the full range of public policies related to the effectiveness of higher education.
Hibel: Governors from several states including California, Minnesota, Nevada and Rhode Island are proposing large budget cuts to higher education programs. How can the colleges and universities in these states, and other states facing similar cuts, meet the needs of students if the state support isn’t available?2
Lingenfelter: The current, especially deep recession (compounded by other issues that exacerbate its impact in some states), is putting great pressure on state budgets. The effects of these conditions on higher education are serious, and should not be minimized. But these conditions are not permanent, and no state has, or is seriously contemplating, ending all support for higher education. The inescapable question facing both states and educators is: How can we generate the numbers and quality of educated people our country needs in the future? That question has an affirmative answer. I’m confident most states, and I hope all states, will find their own version of an affirmative answer. I expect success in this agenda will require changes that increase the productivity and efficiency of higher education, as well as changes in state policy and increases in state support. Eventually we’ll make these changes because we have no choice.
Hibel: Senator Seth Harp of Georgia, chairman of the upper chamber’s higher education committee, was quoted saying, “We have to come to grips with the reality that we don’t have any money. The Constitution mandates K-12 (education). Higher education is one of those areas where every one of us knows it has value — but we also know there is not a constitutional mandate for higher education.” Knowing that this statement most likely infers that the student will be forced to pay more since the state “doesn’t have any money” to give to higher education institutions, will students really see the “value” and pay higher tuition rates to attend college?3
Lingenfelter: There is no constitutional mandate for higher education, but there is an economic mandate. And that mandate affects both individuals and the communities and economies in which they live. We have long expected students in higher education to pay some of the cost of their education, and that could well increase. But if those costs lead to lower levels of education in our society and workforce, the negative effects will be widespread. They will affect everybody, not just the people who fail to obtain postsecondary education. This is the issue facing both educators and policymakers.
Hibel: Given the current political environment, has that economic mandate changed and, if so, how do you think it has affected the ability to fund higher education?
Lingenfelter: I think the mandate has become stronger in this economic climate. So it creates some cross pressures — discretionary money is harder to find, and we need to increase investment in things essential for our future. This affects students, their families, and public policy makers. We all will have to evaluate tradeoffs and make decisions.
Hibel: Senator Harp goes on to say, “We’re asking sacrifices be made by students. We’re asking sacrifices be made by programs. All we’re asking is that the Regents, in using the toolbox, have shared sacrifices.” There have been talks of “a 77 percent increase in tuition, thousands of layoffs, closing of some satellite campuses, ending of popular programs, gutting of course sections and limits on the number of incoming freshmen.” Since other states might be in similar situations, do you think this is an acceptable “sacrifice” that must be incurred?
Lingenfelter: I’ve not met Senator Harp, but I imagine he believes some aspects of higher education are discretionary, disposable. “Sacrificing” such items is not really a sacrifice, but making a statement about priorities. I don’t know anybody in higher education, even people who share my view of its vital importance, who believe everything in higher education is of equal value. Especially when money is scarce, people have to make more difficult decisions about priorities. Good decisions about priorities consider value — present value, future value, and options for maximizing value. The value of public investment in higher education needs to be gauged in these terms. I think higher education will come out well in any serious consideration of these issues, but I don’t think institutions of higher education can afford to be complacent about the conversation. If higher education does nothing to respond to public demands for greater affordability and productivity, we will miss an opportunity to build a stronger public commitment.
Hibel: Dozens of protesters across the United States, many from California, have recently been arrested in their efforts to show their antipathy over budget cuts which may result in higher tuition and unobtainable higher education.5 Do you think their protests are logical or will result in anything beneficial towards affordable tuition?
Lingenfelter: I strongly support public investment in higher education, but I think most people in the United States would consider University of California students to be a privileged class, not an oppressed one. The protests probably help to call attention to the issue, but I expect the negatives are likely to outweigh the positives in terms of swaying public opinion.
Hibel: “University of California’s Board of Regents approved a plan to raise tuition 32 percent. Florida students may face 15 percent annual tuition increases. University of Illinois plans to charge at least 9 percent more than it did last year, and University of Washington may charge 14 percent more at certain campuses. Many universities also are laying off staff, limiting incoming freshman classes and eliminating programs and curriculums that don’t pay for themselves.”6 Is this the answer or a correct step to solving the budget problems, and what do you think are the long-term effects of these decisions?
Lingenfelter: It is hard to argue that any single approach to tuition policy is better than all the other options, given the enormous range of tuition rates in public, to say nothing about private higher education in the United States. Florida and California, for example, tend to have lower tuition than many other states. The real issue is access to opportunity (are classes available) and affordability for those with limited financial resources. Many students who enjoy lower tuitions could afford higher tuitions. The critical question is whether we have the right levels of participation and success in American higher education, not tuition policy. My answer to that question is we need to improve.
Hibel: In Missouri, money for higher education is coming from imposing an insurance premium tax on managed care providers, and in turn yields matching funds from the government.7 In your opinion, is this a viable solution, popular politics or something else?
Lingenfelter: It seems rather convoluted to me.
Hibel: Oregon is one of five states with no statewide sales tax and it relies more heavily than any other state on its residents’ income tax payments for revenue, according to a 2009 analysis by the Tax Foundation.8 According to the recent State of the State by Governor Kulongoski, “Oregon is passing that test. We have a balanced budget for the next 15 months. And we balanced our budget the Oregon way — without expecting additional federal stimulus dollars.9 We changed Oregon’s student financial aid program to a shared responsibility model that has reached thousands of new students in our community colleges and universities. Other states are limiting enrollments in their colleges and universities. We’re educating more students and retraining more workers than ever in our state’s history.” Do you think more states could be successful in regards to higher education programs if they followed the “Oregon way”?
Lingenfelter: Oregon’s approach to student assistance has a lot to recommend it. I don’t have time (or deep enough knowledge) to discuss it in depth here, but I know enough to recommend that it should be considered by other states.
Hibel: The University of Missouri System Board of Curators voted to raise tuition for out-of-state undergraduate students starting this summer up to 5 percent. The board also voted to keep in-state undergraduate tuition flat under a tuition freeze deal with Gov. Jay Nixon.10 Do you think this change in out-of-state versus in-state rates will help or hurt the university system? Should other states follow similar patterns to help in the budget crisis?
Lingenfelter: Some states are keeping out-of-state tuition lower because they are losing population and want to attract more well-educated people to its workforce. Others are raising out-of-state tuition (and recruiting more out-of-state students) in order to capture more revenue. I don’t have philosophical objections to either approach, so long as states are providing opportunity for their own citizens to realize their potential through higher education. In some cases, that priority needs more attention.
Hibel: President Obama, as well as several states, including Oregon, have emphasized their increased commitment to Early Childhood Education Programs.11 Do you think that a state’s budget focusing on these programs can make a difference in preparing children to graduate from high school and ultimately graduate from college? Or, would there be a better approach for spending toward higher education preparedness?
Lingenfelter: Early childhood education is one of several important and necessary ways of increasing educational attainment. It should be strengthened across the United States, strengthened considerably. The benefits will be 25 years down the road, so we need to do some other things for older citizens in the meantime. We also need to make sure the education that follows early childhood programs builds on that foundation.
Hibel: For the next few questions, I would like to address some topics you discussed in April 2010 regarding, “Advocacy for Higher Education at the State Level: Challenges and Opportunities.” In this presentation, you commented that, “Every recession, state funding for higher education drops and enrollments keep growing; per student support for higher education falls, tuition goes up, and colleges and universities get bashed for tuition increases.”12 Do you think colleges and universities are getting an unfair “rap” these days regarding tuition hikes?
Lingenfelter: Tuition increases greater than inflation in response to significant, short-term decreases in other revenues — whether state support or endowment losses — can be defended reasonably easily. But there is evidence that other forces, including competition for market position and the dynamics of being in a seller’s market, also play a role in tuition increases. And higher education’s public reputation would benefit if we worked harder to increase productivity and made those efforts visible.
Hibel: Referencing again your presentation mentioned above, you stated, “Despite a national trend of relative stability or modest growth, twenty four states lost ground in constant dollar state support, and half of them (12) lost more than 20%.” You go on to ask some important questions such as “What distinguishes the states that have gained a lot from those who have lost a lot? Is it the quality of their advocacy or of their leaders? Is it the prosperity of their state’s economy? Is it the quality of the competition within the states for state funding?” What are your thoughts on these questions that you posed?
Lingenfelter: I think the public is more inclined to support higher education when it has a clear sense that higher education is meeting a public priority. People like to shop, they don’t like to pay bills. When higher education expanded to educate the baby boom almost all states poured larger fractions of state revenues into higher education. It is really dangerous to generalize, but I suspect that in the states that have lost the most ground (particularly in those states where the economy was relatively robust, compared to the national average), there was no specific, public agenda for higher education. Higher education funding is all about what to give the colleges and universities. In the states with growth, there are more visible examples of public purposes involving higher education. Kentucky is the most visible example.
Hibel: According to your ideas from the afore mentioned presentation, in respects to state support there are some clear “winners” (i.e., Louisiana, Wyoming, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Maryland) and “losers” (i.e., Vermont, New Jersey, South Dakota, Oregon, Iowa, Maine, and Michigan). Can you explain why these states are either winning or losing the battle and what can be done for the “losing” states to turn around and become more successful?
Lingenfelter: The implicit question a policy maker might ask is: What will the people of the state get for an incrementally higher investment in postsecondary education? If the answer to that question is simply happier faculty and students, I think the odds of more revenues are low. In order to get more public support we’ll need to promise and deliver more public value, in terms that people will recognize as legitimate.
Hibel: You mentioned that a “very promising opportunity for winning greater public support is much more visibly and effectively partnering with K-12 to increase the capacity and effectiveness of teachers and school leaders.” This seems to be a very strong and sensible idea. How would you propose the partnership work?
Lingenfelter: The first step is to make it a real priority and then pursue it with conviction. That will involve building stronger relationships with schools in each institution’s service area; creating stronger, well supervised clinical experiences in teacher education and school leadership; improving the quality and scale of in-service professional development for teachers and school leaders; down-sizing existing programs that add dubious value; and reallocating resources where they are most needed. It will take human and financial resources. This is an issue that requires a response at scale, not tinkering at the edges. Policy change and financial commitment will be necessary, but neither will come without commitment and determination on the part of postsecondary leaders.
Hibel: In some colleges and universities dealing with budget constraints, employees may be facing job cuts, salary cuts, or if they are fortunate to keep their job, their workload may increase. What would your advice be to someone who is currently working in a position where it seems their future is uncertain?
Lingenfelter: It seems that “certain” futures and stable careers are a thing of the past. On the other hand, skillful people who work hard, work well with others, and are adaptive and creative in finding ways to add value are very much in demand. Taking initiative, not hoping for the situation to get better by itself, creating options is probably the best way of coping with tough times (or good times for that matter).
Hibel: We frequently ask our guest about their best career advice to job seekers in higher education. You have been working in academe designing strategic enrollment plans for your entire career. What would you suggest is a good strategy for a job search in today’s economy?
Lingenfelter: In my experience, job searches have never been easy; I’ve been turned down for many more jobs than I’ve ever held, and for many jobs where I’m sure I would have done very well! Employers are not looking to help you, they are looking for somebody who can help them. They will make hiring decisions based on their own vision of their needs (and the vision and predispositions of others in the organization), and they will do what they can to minimize risk. Too often that means conventional searches and conventional decisions, efforts to recruit and hire “known-quantities.” So getting started is the tricky part, and mentors can help a lot in that first job. But once you get started, almost no matter how you start, the best way to build a career is figure out what people consider strong performance, do it, and get noticed without being a showboat. If you are stuck in a rut, you’ll have to get out of it on your own; nobody else will do it for you. Networks and mentors help. But the thing that helps most is hard work, good performance, and skillful interpersonal relationships.