Anyone who is curious about what lies ahead in the world of higher education should read the article on the future of large state flagship universities by Paul Fain in the Oct. 26 issue of the New York Times. The article shows the growing trend of public universities operating more like private universities, such as Fairfield University.
For most of their history state universities were able to count on generous financial support from state legislatures. In turn, these schools provided good educations to state residents at a very low cost.
Many of these universities grew to become enormous institutions with extensive research programs, huge enrollments, and almost limitless graduate, undergraduate, and varsity athletic programs. But the economics of higher education are such that this is beginning to change. Many states are slashing their budgetary allocations to state universities, and that trend is likely to continue.
At the same time, the costs of universities are extremely difficult to manage down. Even with conscientious cost-cutting, universities are expensive to operate: They depend on a high concentration of well-educated faculty and personnel, the need to house and feed thousands of people and provide them with healthcare, public safety, recreation, and access to the latest in research tools and technology. Most of these are fixed costs that are very difficult to contain.
As costs rise and money from state legislators starts to dry up, many state universities are beginning to operate like private institutions, with steep rises in tuition and an increasing tendency to seek students from out of state — who pay higher tuition and fees than in state students — to try to address their budget gaps.
David E. Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, who is interviewed in the article, “sees the tuition increases as part of a larger movement toward privatization of the most desirable flagships.”
The article notes that with “state contributions largely flat or down over the last 15 years, and enrollments and costs up, many top flagships are turning to nonpublic sources for money and, in some cases, accepting larger numbers of out-of-state students, who often pay twice the tuition of residents.” The University of Michigan now only receives 7 percent of its budget from the state, while the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Wisconsin and several other big schools now enroll 30 percent or more of their students from out of state.
Certainly, when I meet with administrators and presidents from other universities — private or public — what always comes up in discussion is the challenge of trying to maintain the quality of our programs while keeping our institutions accessible in a time of limited resources. All of our institutions of higher education will have to look very closely at our missions in the coming years in order to adapt to the times, and state universities may not be able to be all things to all people any more. It may be possible that in this changing future, we can find ways to build cooperative programs — between the private and public institutions — so that we can find efficiencies together.
