The Tennessee Board of Regents held the first of 16 statewide “town hall” meetings last week, to allow citizens to voice concerns about and offer solutions to the problem of state of higher education funding in Tennessee — and the possibility that funding will not increase anytime soon.
The meetings are part of a comprehensive strategy designed by TBR to develop short-range, intermediate and long-range goals for improving higher education in Tennessee, while still facing budget cuts Gov. Don Sundquist must make in order to balance the state’s budget.
“What we are trying to do is maximize what we can do for the state of Tennessee within the resources we have and are likely to be available based on legislative direction,” said TBR Chancellor Charles Manning.
Manning said TBR is considering any and all ways to get the most out of the shrinking higher education budget.
Possible changes could involve sending students who need remedial courses to two year institutions and hiring more part-time professors to fill full-time positions.
The large number of part-time professors teaching at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics was one reason the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting agency, threatened to pull the school’s accreditation.
In 2000, 29 percent of freshmen age 18 or older at Tennessee’s public institutions needed remedial education. At The University of Memphis, nearly 39 percent of first-time students needed developmental course work.
Moving students who need remedial course work to two-year institutions may mean a loss of revenue for The University, but it means the state would save money because two-year institutions receive a lower state subsidy for each student.
According to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the state pays an average of $5,985 for every full-time student at the state’s four-year institutions. At two-year institutions, the state pays an average of only $4,153 per full-time student.
“We need to change how we do some things, and that means we won’t be doing things we have done in the past,” Manning said. “Public higher education hardly gets into a service people don’t want, and when you talk about change someone is going to be negatively affected.”
TBR has also established task forces to improve the system’s goals of accountability, efficiency, access and academic excellence.
The issue will come to a head at a “board summit” that begins Oct. 22. At that meeting, TBR members will review topics raised at the regional meetings, as well as the recommendations made by the task forces.
Following the meeting, the regents will submit their findings and recommendations to the Tennessee legislature.
Manning said things will not get any better next year unless the legislature calls for a dramatic change in the way state raises money.
“There are certainly going to be very limited new funds when you look at next year without any change in the tax structure,” Manning said.
Some members of the Tennessee legislature agree, and have instructed the TBR to study ways to do more with less.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Matt Kisber (D-Jackson), chairman of the House Finance Ways and Means Committee, orders TBR to “examine the impact on their respective institutions of the reductions made in this budget and the reality that the level of funding of the higher education formula may decline.”
