Nevada boosts college funding

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, July 24, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.

With the ink now dry on the state budget, university system officials are relieved: Funding for higher education in Nevada went up at a time when other states are seeing their budgets cut.

For two months, the University and Community College System of Nevada's $1.26 billion budget was subject to the whims of weary legislators and uncertainty surrounding the passage of tax increases necessary to balance the state budget.

With that last hurdle cleared this week, officials say Nevada is luckier than most other states.

"I think Nevada does buck the trend in funding for higher education," said Will Doyle, a senior policy analyst for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education based in San Jose, Calif. "From most of the states, we are hearing decreases in state funding levels."

Doyle said that the dust has yet to settle on budgets in many of the Western states, but things don't look good for university systems.

In California, there's talk of cutting $500 million from higher education. Oregon just approved a 9 percent decrease in funding. Arizona will likely see small cuts, and funding in Utah and Idaho will likely remain flat, Doyle said.

But the amount of money states spend on higher education has been declining over the past few years. Western states in 1997 spent 12.2 percent of their overall general fund budget on higher education but just 11.8 percent in 2002, according to the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, or WICHE, a nonprofit group that tracks trends in 15 Western states.

Conversely, Nevada allocated 18.1 percent of its general fund budget to higher education in 1997, 19.2 percent in 2001 and 20 percent in 2003, according to figures supplied by WICHE and Nevada's Legislative Council Bureau.

"I think that what this does is point to what the alternative was," said Greg Bortolin, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn. "The alternative was cutting budgets rather than taking a bold step forward. The alternative was cutting enrollment at our universities and community colleges, which are bursting at the seams."

While Guinn's recommendation to adequately fund the university system helped, educators attribute this session's gain to a number of factors.

For the first time, UCCSN officials hired an outside lobbyist to pitch for them. There were also a number of legislators who supported the expansion of higher education programs. They believed more cuts would offset progress made by programs such as the Millennium Scholarship.

"We kind of took our reductions two years ago," said Dan Miles, vice chancellor for finance and administration. "One of the reasons why our increase this time looks so big is that we are really making up for enrollment growth that we lost out on during those years."

Getting the message across about the potential harm of cutting higher education was John Pappageorge, one of the state's most seasoned lobbyists.

"If you're knocking on legislators' doors over and over again, pretty soon you're going to get your message across," Pappageorge said. "The hours were unbelievable. For all of us, not just me, it was a long hard road. But I think you can see the results of that from the votes."

College and university officials in Southern Nevada are expecting at least a 9 percent increase in enrollment this year. With the budget increase, officials say they will be able to handle the growth.

"Given the challenges that the state faces with growth, (the increase in funding) is certainly good news," Doyle said.