The dollars and cents of running a major public university like the University of Memphis involves much more than just government subsidies from the state.
The U of M now ranks third in the state of Tennessee in full-time students and in budgets behind the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Middle Tennessee State University. But, the difference between number one and number three in budgets is almost two-to-one.
The State of Tennessee fiscal year 2002-2003 budget for higher education shows that UTK will have a budget slightly over $426 million with a full-time enrollment (FTE) of 22,624 students. Which is approximately $18,382 per student enrolled. This does not include any other school in the UT system such as the medical facilities at UT-Memphis.
MTSU’s FTE is listed at 17,125 and a budget of $182.3 million dollars or $10,645 per student. It should be noted that the budget is shifting upwards for MTSU as the enrollment continues to rise.
The Tennessee State Budget for the three schools is relatively close to the actual operating budgets of the schools.
Sharon Hayes, the Director of Budgeting at the U of M, said, “Those budgets are pretty close, but not exact.”
According to Hayes, the U of M’s budget is in the $261 million range. With an enrollment of 19,797 undergraduate and graduate students for the Fall 2002 semester, that is about $13,183 for each student per academic year.
The U of M budget will operate this year with $103 million of its annual budget coming from state subsidies. The rest coming from private donations, federal grant money, contracts and other revenues generated by the school such as housing and non-credit courses.
The U of M has been taken to task recently because of a proposed move of the men’s Tigers basketball games to the new Memphis Grizzlies arena instead of staying in the Pyramid in 2004. This discussion brought up other issues involving community support of the school as a whole by some in the local media.
Early last week, WREC radio host Mike Fleming referred to the U of M as a “welfare state” on his radio program. Several attempts to contact Fleming to comment about his remarks were unsuccessful.
Hayes said she could not recall an instance where the city or county came to the U of M’s aid in any manner different from the type of support other universities receive from their surrounding communities.
The U of M is always exploring fund-raising opportunities because it is a vital part of funding in any institution of higher learning.
The use fund raising efforts to get support from private donors just as do most colleges, especially commuter schools like U of M Conference USA sister schools Louisville and Cincinnati.
According to Hayes the U of M is involved with the local government on several projections such as the Campus School, which is in the Memphis City Schools system and the FedEx Technology Center is under construction.
“I’m aware that there have been partnerships in the community (with the University).” Hayes said.
The U of M also continues to try and reach out its alumni base to help finance the cost of higher education.
Dan Beasley, the acting Associate Vice-President For Advancement and Marketing, said, “We try to establish a line of communication between the school and the alumni base which should increase our donor base.”
Beasley placed the onus on the school to reach out and he feels that they are making big strides in doing so.
The people of Shelby County are well represented within the U of M.
The are over 2700 Shelby County residents who are employed by the U of M which, according to Office of Memphis and Shelby County Development, makes the school the tenth largest employer in the Memphis / Shelby County metropolitan area.
The school also is the school of choice for Shelby County residents.
The vast majority, 78 percent, of the U of M student population is Shelby County residents.
“So in the long run, it is in the best interest of Memphis to support the University.” Hayes added.
