Rogers: Keep cash on campus

Friday, Jan. 13, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

University Chancellor Jim Rogers is advancing a plan to improve colleges and universities by reducing the Legislature's control of education funding.

Rogers wants the Nevada System of Higher Education to keep and spend more of the money it collects in student fees and tuition. Currently, 65 percent of revenue from tuition and fees is forwarded to the state treasury to offset a portion of the state's higher education costs. The state, in turn, sets and funds the budget for higher education.

In Rogers' view, that arrangement all but divorces state spending on higher education from the money students pay in tuition and fees.

"You don't have much incentive to raise tuition," Rogers said, because there's no guarantee they'll get that money back from the state. The university system also has little incentive to recruit out-of-state students, who pay far more than in-state students for their education.

Told about Rogers' proposal Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he is willing to discuss it with the Board of Regents.

With the state in control of student fees and tuition, regents typically approve only small increases each year. Other Western states charge students more, said Dan Klaich, system vice chancellor for legal affairs.

Keeping fees and tuition low may be good for students, but it also helps push UNLV to the bottom tier of most national rankings, Rogers said. To improve the quality of education, students need to bear more of the cost, and to do that, UNLV and the state's other colleges need to have more control of their tuition dollars.

Rogers conceded that his plan would eventually lead to higher tuition and fees for students. Rogers and Klaich are betting that students will grumble less over increases if they see how their contributions are improving their education.

UNLV students face a 10.9 percent increase in student fees for each of the next two years, Nevada State students will likely see about a 9 percent hike and community college students will see about a 4.5 percent rise in fees, Klaich said.

"We want a greater portion of student fee increases to remain at the institution where they will have a more immediate impact on programs and services that affect students," Klaich said.

The Board of Regents will consider Rogers' proposal and the proposed fee increases at its meeting Jan. 26 and 27 in Las Vegas, Klaich said. Both items won't be voted on until the March meeting, but if regents agree to adopt Rogers' proposal, he'll also have to sell the idea to state lawmakers.

At UNLV, about $65 of every $102 students pay per credit goes back to the state treasury, said Gerry Bomotti, UNLV vice president for finance. Every penny from out-of-state tuition, at $4,700 per student, goes back to the state.

That amounts to about $66 million in the 2006 fiscal year, Bomotti said, which together with another $7 million in additional revenue sources, offsets about $225 million that the state allocates for UNLV's operating budget.

The rest of the $102 student fee goes to specified university needs: $7 for financial aid, $4 for lab equipment and other general improvement needs, $13 for building construction and maintenance, $9 for student activities and programs and $4 for technology, Bomotti said.

UNLV students also pay for health care, for a campus recyling program, and for construction of the student union, in addition to charges for supplies for some classes. Those can range from $7 for a physical education class to $500 for music lessons, UNLV officials said.

The registration fees students pay at the Community College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College in Henderson are similarly broken down, with more than half the money going back to the state, college officials said.

State lawmakers, in particular Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, have complained that higher education officials were playing games with students and lawmakers by adding a variety of supplemental fees in an attempt to keep more money at the institutions.

Students are getting "fee'd to death," Giunchigliani said Thursday. Many students are unaware of many fees when they sign up for classes, she said.

Giunchigliani and other lawmakers said they would rather the colleges charge just one flat fee to cover everything.

Rogers and Klaich said they believe giving universities and colleges more control over that revenue -- with the condition that they won't get as many dollars back from the state -- would ease concerns of lawmakers and help the higher education system better manage its money.

Officials at UNLV, Nevada State and CCSN all said their institutions supported the move. Bomotti said he believed keeping more of the dollars at the university would also help officials there better respond to surges in course enrollment because their wouldn't be a lag in receiving funding.

Peter Goatz, student body president at UNLV, said he believes students will find it easier to swallow the annual increase in fees if they can see where it is going.

"I think students would at least understand why they are paying more," said Goatz, adding that UNLV's student government will likely lobby both regents and state lawmakers to keep more of the revenue at the university.

Most likely, higher education officials will strike a compromise where the state still sees a percentage of the fee increases but where the colleges have the ability to retain enough to really make some visible improvements to the quality of education, Rogers said.

"When you sit down to negotiate, everyone has to come away a winner," Rogers said.

The state, and thus taxpayers, need to support higher education because it benefits the economy and society at large, Rogers said. But the state alone cannot make UNLV a great university, and "the guy who lays carpet" shouldn't be expected to fully pay for someone's college education, Rogers said.

Those who can afford to pay more should, Rogers said, and there needs to be more state-funded financial aid to help those who can't.

Board of Regents' policy already mandates that half of the money from every fee increase be reserved for financial aid, but that does not generate nearly enough to cover the need, higher education officials say.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.