The Tennessee Board of Regents held a town hall meeting at the Fogelman Executive Center last night to discuss the lamentable state of higher education funding in Tennessee.
Because of the slimmed down budget passed by the state legislature earlier this year, all 45 of the TBR’s institutions are feeling the budget noose tighten.
In front of a sparse crowd and a live television audience, University of Memphis President Shirley Raines said such undercutting of higher education funding has led to tuition increases, hiring freezes, accreditation problems and shortfalls in faculty retention at The U of M.
“We have some wonderfully gifted faculty at this university who have been here a long time and who have chosen to stay in Memphis,” Raines said. “The challenge is that they are often being wooed away by places that can afford to pay a better salary.”
According to the Southern Region Education Board, a non-profit agency that monitors the status of higher education in the southeastern United States, The U of M ranks last in faculty salaries in its 11 school peer group.
Because of the underfunded budget, the TBR increased tuition at its universities by 15 percent earlier this year, an action that may lead prospective students to look elsewhere for education.
“Tuition increases are a disincentive for students to stay home,” state Sen. Steve Cohen(D) said. “We need to give them incentives to stay.”
The problems associated with the already low funding for higher education may be exacerbated by future reductions in support from the state.
The state legislature has, in essence, ordered the TBR to do more with less.
“We are talking about restricting students’ (enrollment) and restricting remedial courses,” said Nate Essex, president of Southwest Tennessee Community College. “There are some very hard decisions that will have to be made.”
Associate professor and director of Social Work Jerome Blakemore has felt the sting of decreased funding.
Blakemore said his department is five professors short and he worries about the quality of the education his students receive.
The woeful funding not only hurts Tennessee’s colleges and universities in the short term, it has a chilling effect on high school students who may want to pursue higher education in Tennessee. Shelby County Schools superintendent Jim Mitchell said 42 percent of the best and brightest students in his system are choosing to leave Tennessee to earn their degrees elsewhere.
Critics of the legislature say the blame for the funding fiasco should be placed squarely on their shoulders for refusing to revamp Tennessee’s antiquated tax structure and for passing an austere budget.
“The big picture is more revenue for higher education. We need more revenues, we need tax reform,” said Cohen, an income tax advocate.
“Tax reform is more than just an income tax, it is overall reform,” state Rep. Paul Stanley (R) said. Stanley suggested a temporary half-cent sales tax increase as a short term solution.
Cohen said a half-cent increase in the sales tax would be of little use and it would “get people off the hook” without making any real changes in the way Tennessee funds higher education.
“I think we need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something new,” state Sen. Roscoe Dixon(D) said. “We have an obligation to do the will of the people.”
Tennessee Commissioner of Finance and Administration Warren Neal said the need to reform higher education funding is “the most important issue to face this state in the 21st century, the information and technology age.”
Almost everyone on the panel agreed that the best way to achieve meaningful reform is for the general public to take a proactive stance and get involved with the states faltering higher education infrastructure.
They said Tennesseans who support a new income tax face a boisterous opposition and should contact their representatives or anyone else who will listen.
They were referring to the anti-income tax protesters who circled the state capitol honking their car horns and flooding the talk radio airwaves while the legislature was debating the merits and legality of an income tax.
“We need some support behind us and they have troops on the other side,” Dixon said.
With the state already facing a $200 million budget shortfall next year, the probability of reform is slim.
“I am afraid that right now I don’t see a positive outcome,” Cohen said.
