Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Dire Economic Times

The Greensboro News and Record this morning ran the following piece on its editorial page. It demonstrates a gathering momentum for radical solutions to our budgetary woes. We need to be thinking proactively about possible solutions to the economic situation in which we find ourselves. Other systems are shelving campuses, closing programs, and laying off faculty. We well might not escape this kind of pain. A letter below the article is one response. Our meeting this week will represent another avenue of thinking. Creativity and boldness are the order of the day.

Brains and budgets
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 (Updated 3:01 am)
Erskine Bowles stunned some observers at his final UNC Board of Governors meeting as system president last week. He said a state university campus might have to close someday to save money.

Drastic measures must be on Bowles’ mind these days. He’s been pulling double duty as co-chairman of a federal deficit-reduction commission.

Whether trying to whittle down the national debt or balancing the state budget, every option has to be considered. UNC numbers-crunchers already are looking at the potential impacts of 5 percent, 10 percent or 15 percent funding cuts. Laying off faculty and reducing course offerings are likely results in the short term. If the financial picture gets worse, more serious actions may be required.

Closing any of the UNC system’s campuses would ignite a firestorm of protest from the affected community. But, when a study of the entire state government structure is overdue, the universities can’t be overlooked. Considering the low graduation rates at some, legitimate questions about effectiveness can be raised. In fact, Bowles also suggests that budget cuts might be tied to poor academic achievement: Graduate more students, get more money; let more students drop out, lose funding. It’s a survival-of-the-fittest approach to higher education.

Yet, there’s more to a university’s value than a four-year graduation rate. Every campus accounts for a huge economic impact. Furthermore, tough times make it harder for students — especially those from economically challenged backgrounds — to stay in school. Cutting faculty and course offerings likely will slow students’ academic progress even more. Still, the state can hardly afford to continue high subsidies for poor results. Universities must find ways to improve retention and graduation rates.

One way to cope with cuts is to share resources. That’s obvious when campuses are only minutes apart. UNCG and N.C. A&T can offer more classes to students from both campuses and reduce duplication. Greater distances can be overcome by increasing the availability of online classes. A professor in Chapel Hill can lecture to students from Cullowhee to Elizabeth City all at once. A virtual campus costs less to construct than one built with bricks and mortar. It would not offer the same campus experience that present and past generations of college students have enjoyed, but North Carolina needs to provide higher education to more students at less cost per capita.

Retreating from a commitment to higher education will leave this state far behind in the race for economic growth in a sophisticated world. The smart people who run our universities must figure out how to fill more brains for the buck.

The lousy economy won’t last forever, but it can do more damage every year. North Carolina must maintain a strong public university system while spending less money. Identifying and reducing costly weaknesses is one necessary step.



Tuesday, November 9, 2010 (Updated 3:05 am)

Every time the UNC budget takes a hit, chancellors threaten to cut faculty and eliminate classes. Erskine Bowles rightly targeted the university system’s bloated administration in the last belt-tightening. University bureaucracies and bureaucratic salaries grew exponentially from the mid-1990s when the system adopted a “business model,” changing its mission from providing a good education at reasonable cost to a focus on image and national standings.

Now is the time to return to the mission of providing good educational opportunities for North Carolinians at affordable prices. Instead of cutting faculty and services, the universities need to move to “step two” in trimming the bureaucracy: cutting administrator salaries to associate professor levels. Paying administrators at rates double or triple that of faculty is outrageous, given the differences in job requirements. Both of our local universities could hire Nobel laureates for the money they pay some of their administrators. It’s time to return some sanity to the cost structure of our state universities.

Harol Hoffman
Greensboro

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