Costs

American colleges and universities spend billions of dollars a year from state, federal, and private sources. The following articles identify ways to cut costs and ensure that public investment in higher education provides value to students, taxpayers, and society.

Bi-Weekly Notebook

Nov 17, 2006 ·

RALEIGH – University of North Carolina President Erskine Bowles maintained his image of business-like efficiency when he spoke before the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee on Nov. 15. Although his chief purpose was to describe the details of the 6.5 percent tuition cap, he made other points about the university administration’s commitment to efficiency, transparency, and accountability. For one, he said that the university has clarified its priorities. Budget requests for the upcoming year take up 32 pages, compared with 347 or 348 last year. Financial aid and faculty salaries top the priorities list.

The University of Illinois’ Global Campus Initiative

Nov 16, 2006 ·

Online education has largely been treated like a stepchild in the world of higher education. It gets a bit of food and some old clothes, but not much attention in comparison with the university’s real children. A new online initiative begun by the University of Illinois, however, may give this Cinderella a more prominent place than it has had before.

Announced last May, the Global Campus Initiative (GCI) is a remarkable university undertaking that should give online education more prominence. What’s more, the GCI is intended to be a profit-making venture and the startup capital will be raised from private sources. The tuition paid by students – and no breaks for Illinois residents – are expected to cover all costs. Implicitly, Illinois is saying, “We think we have an educational product that will pass the test of the market.” Very interesting, especially since several high-profile online education ventures have failed.

BOG OKs 2007-09 Budget Request

Nov 14, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL — The University of North Carolina will seek more than $270 million in new funds when the General Assembly convenes in January. UNC’s request, approved Friday by the Board of Governors, is $2.57 billion for fiscal 2008 and $2.63 billion for 2009, and for the first time includes enrollment growth funding ($48 million in 2008), in the expansion budget.

The request focuses on increased funding in what the officials call key areas for the university. The areas include financial aid, student retention, research, improving teacher education, and health care. The five areas comprise 90 percent of the requested funding, BOG member Edward Broadwell said.

The largest single request would fund academic salary increases, a wish-list item that has been a top priority for President Erskine Bowles. UNC is requesting $116 million in 2008 for salary hikes, which represents 43 percent of the requested new funds, Broadwell said. UNC officials want an additional $115 million in 2009.

According to the budget request, UNC officials want to spend more than $87 million of those funds during the biennium to increase salaries to a point where they reach the 80th percentile of salaries among peer institutions. UNC-Chapel Hill would receive more than $20 million, the most of the 16 institutions.

The remainder of the funding for salary increases would go toward a 4 percent merit-based salary increase.

UNC’s next highest request would go toward funding research initiatives at the campus at a rate of $61 million in 2008 and $45 million in 2009. Part of the request, $15 million for each fiscal year, would go toward the creation of what is being called a competitiveness fund. The fund would “support strategic investments in emerging areas of importance to the economic competitiveness of the state,” the request says. Some of the areas include nanosciences, marine sciences, natural products, environmental sciences, informational technology, biomanufacturing, port logistics, marine aerodynamics, and other areas.

The budget request also includes $35.6 million in 2008 and $19.2 million for need-based financial aid. UNC leaders said the need-based financial aid program is $12 million short of being fully funded. The system serves 35,000 undergraduate students from North Carolina.

Panel OKs ECU Dental School

Nov 10, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL — A University of North Carolina Board of Governors committee Thursday gave approval to plans for a dental school at East Carolina University. The full Board of Governors will vote today on whether to give final approval to the creation of the state’s second dental school.

Members of the Board of Governors’ Committee on Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs gave unanimous approval to the plan following a brief presentation by Alan Mabe, vice president for academic planning for the UNC system. Mabe’s presentation outlined the plan, accompanied by comments from a review committee that included dental experts from across the nation.

The push for a new dental school has been billed by supporters as an effort to alleviate the shortage of dentists in the state, especially in rural areas. The price tag for a new dental school at ECU is estimated at $90 million.

Coppin State President named Chancellor of NC A&T

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CHAPEL HILL – Coppin State President Stanley Battle was named Friday as the new chancellor of North Carolina A&T during the November UNC Board of Governors meeting. His appointment is effective July 1.

Battle was unanimously approved to lead the Greensboro school just five months after former North Carolina A&T Chancellor Jim Renick resigned to become senior vice president for programs and research for the American Council on Education. Former Fayetteville State chancellor and North Carolina Community College System president Lloyd Hackney will continue to serve as interim chancellor.

UNCG, A&T Eye Nano Program

Nov 9, 2006 ·

GREENSBORO — UNC-Greensboro and North Carolina A&T officials recently submitted a request to the University of North Carolina general administration to operate a school of nanotechnology and nanoengineering.

If approved by the Board of Governors, students would be enrolled starting in the fall 2008. The program would mark the second time the two schools together offered a degree program. The schools already offer a combined master’s degree in social work.

School officials have requested a total of $65 million, including funding for new buildings and other operational costs, from UNC in the 2007-2010 budget for the program. Should the Board of Governors approve the program, its budget would still require approval by the General Assembly.

Nanotechnology is focused on microscopic research and development concepts.

The Supreme Court and the Inflation of Educational Credentials

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In the mid-nineteenth century, the French economist Frederic Bastiat distinguished between good and bad economists by focusing on whether they thought through the long-run consequences of their arguments. According to Bastiat, a good economist was not blinded by the possible short-run gains to be attained by pursuing a certain course of action, but asked the question, “What will be the long-run consequences of doing that?” Bastiat was saying that the good economist worries about what we today call unintended consequences, whereas the bad economist considers only the immediate and visible consequences.

While Bastiat’s point was couched in terms of economists, his analysis could be applied just as well to anyone in position to make public policy decisions, including judges who can make law through their decisions in cases. (Judges often say that they are simply “interpreting” the law when they’re actually creating it.) A classic case of this phenomenon was the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (401 U.S. 424).

Higher Education Notebook

Nov 3, 2006 ·

Increasing faculty salaries was the second-highest budget priority out of 11 presented to the Board of Governors’ Committee on Budget and Finance October 12. The administration plans to seek funds from the 2007 legislature to boost faculty salaries, on average, to the 80th percentile of their peers. This would mean adding $43.9 million in 2007-08 and the same amount for 2008-09. The $87.8 total would be in addition to 4 per cent merit-based increases, which will add up to $136 million for the two-year period, plus a proposed $2 million for distinguished professorships.

These numbers come from a “draft for discussion purposes only” list of priorities presented at the meeting and could change. The top priority is need-based financial aid, with a total proposed request for such aid $53.6 million. Other high priorities include $1.75 million for the “Academic Summer Bridge” program for students not ready to enter as freshmen, funds for University of North Carolina Online ($10 million over two years), and a variety of research projects totaling $59 million for 2007-8 and $29.6 million for 2008-09.

Universities Plan Disaster Response

Oct 31, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL — A program administered by Duke, North Carolina State, and UNC-Chapel Hill universities will establish off-campus sites to improve response to disasters in eastern and western North Carolina.

The Renaissance Computing Institute will open offices next year in Asheville, in conjunction with UNC-Asheville, and in Greenville, which will be affiliated with East Carolina University. The institute will fund the sites for three years.

Jane S. Shaw Appointed New Executive Vice President

Oct 24, 2006 ·

RALEIGH – Jane S. Shaw has been appointed executive vice president of the J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving higher education in North Carolina and the nation. The center is named for the late John William Pope, who was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shaw comes to the Pope Center from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana, where she was a senior fellow and director of outreach for over twenty years. PERC is a nonprofit institute that applies economics to understanding and solving environmental problems. Before joining PERC, Shaw was a journalist. She moved to Montana from New York City, where she was an associate economics editor for Business Week. Shaw has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Shaw is perhaps best known for her writing about the environment. With Michael Sanera she coauthored Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Regnery, 1999). This book points out the exaggeration and pessimism typical of middle-school and high school textbooks and offers more balanced discussions of environmental issues from acid rain to global warming. She also edited a series of young people’s books on environmental topics published by Greenhaven Press, and coedited a book on land use, A Guide to Smart Growth (2000).