The higher ed squeeze

By Charlotte Hsu

Running a quality research university is a pricey endeavor. You need state-of-the-art equipment and laboratories.

Faculty members and graduate students need time and money to work on projects.

Woosoon Yim, a professor in UNLV's mechanical engineering department, knows all about the expense. He scored a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation this year to use microwaves to remotely power and control small-scale robotic systems.

The money was meant to last three years, funding supplies, a small boost to Yim's pay and graduate student support. But Yim is already hunting for more funding.

"My equipment money is not enough," he said, "so I'm trying to write another proposal."

As UNLV looks to become a nationally recognized research institution by doing more of what Yim is doing, the elephantine cost of getting there poses a serious question: Who should pay?

Gov. Jim Gibbons, unwilling to raise taxes, recently asked higher education to prepare for a 5 percent budget cut. Higher education Chancellor Jim Rogers refused, saying such a reduction could be "a permanent crippling blow" to colleges and universities.

"When you're talking about starting to cut the budget of a major university by 5 percent, donors look at that and say, 'Wait, why am I going to invest in something that the state won't invest in?' " Rogers said.

The debate over what level of responsibility a state should have for funding major public universities is taking place across the country.

Taxpayers contribute, as they always have - even in Nevada, one of five states without either a corporate or individual income tax. But with prisons, health care and social services competing for state funding, higher education institutions are struggling. More and more, schools turn to students, private donors and agencies that provide research grants to pony up when the government can't or won't.

This thirst for money has changed the culture of public higher education.

Fundraising is a job requirement for deans who not long ago worried only about academics. Students have come to expect near-annual tuition and fee increases. The 21st century public university is a costly enterprise that, to be competitive, must fight and claw for finite resources.

"That is true at every public university in the United States, that they are required to become more entrepreneurial because every place in this country, the state is providing a smaller fraction of a budget of public universities," said UNR President Milton Glick, who entered academia as a faculty member in 1965.

States haven't abandoned their commitment to higher education, but a dollar doesn't go as far as it did 30 years ago, he said. Today's student expects pricey perks such as campus wireless Internet access. Universities have more attorneys than ever . Research is getting more expensive. For these and other reasons, schools such as UNLV and UNR are having to go begging for money.

The proportion of UNLV's budget that comes from the state has fallen from 46 percent to 37.5 percent over the past two decades as other revenue streams have grown, according to numbers provided by Gerry Bomotti, the school's senior vice president for finance and business.

The University of Illinois system gets about 30 percent of its budget from the state. And the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor gets 24 percent of its nonhospital revenue from Michigan.

As UNLV wins more competitive grants, the share of the school's budget that comes from Nevada will drop more, UNLV President David Ashley said.

"If you just look across the country, somewhere around 25 percent of your operating funds from state money is probably a reasonable target," he said.

Though UNLV gets a smaller percentage of its budget from the state, the dollar amount it gets from Nevada per student is on the rise. Per-pupil state funding rose from $5,867 in 1999-2000 to $8,361 this year. Still, the state gives the school less money per student than Arizona gave its state university at Tempe five years ago, according to Bomotti.

As money gets tighter and the school focuses more on research, the state must provide enough to cover basics - faculty salaries, classroom and laboratory space and operations such as building maintenance, said Bill Boldt, vice president for advancement.

Paying for items such as state-of-the-art labs and special scholarships to attract top students - "the margin of excellence," in higher education jargon - is more complicated. That is where private donors - including companies that want an educated work force - should contribute because they benefit from a good university, higher education officials said. UNLV is in the midst of a massive fundraising campaign, hoping to raise $500 million by 2008.

As Rogers told audiences in an October state of education speech, "No state legislature ever built a great university." In the same speech he said students will be hearing proposals for tuition and fee increases. Student tuition and fees already account for a hefty share of the budget. Nationally, the increasing financial burden higher education is placing on students has been a controversial issue.

At UNLV, the student paper recently ran an editorial saying a tuition and fee increase may be "a necessary evil."

However it gets the money, Nevada should do more, Ashley said. UNLV has struggled to meet student needs, relying on lower-paid part-time faculty and fewer advisers and other staff than necessary to fully support students.

And Ashley said the state can do more to support research, which he views as a state obligation whose importance matches that of teaching. Nevada should give money to spur research that benefits Nevadans and to support career development for young researchers, he said.

Regent Steve Sisolak said UNLV and other institutions should use state money first and foremost to educate. Research is important, but secondary, he said.

To establish how much money higher education institutions need to operate, Nevada uses a funding formula. And even by that measure, higher education isn't fully funded. This year, legislators gave UNLV and other schools 85.5 percent of the suggested budget.

"To define 85.5 percent as a satisfactory level ... is not a way to invest in the highest quality of research and faculty and students," Ashley said.

State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio said covering 100 percent is not realistic today given the state's limited revenue. Since 2001-02, lawmakers have increased the state's percentage from 81.55 percent to 85.5 percent.

"Full funding is something that's a goal," said Raggio, who sees the higher education funding as a private-public partnership. He thinks the private sector will play a bigger role in future funding, particularly when it comes to expensive items such as construction. While not singling out higher education, Raggio has said the state should explore whether current taxes sufficiently cover basic services. And Sisolak and Rogers have said a business tax might be the solution.

Regents Chairman Michael Wixom and Sisolak said that given the state's tight budget they think lawmakers have been generous toward higher education. But they and Rogers agree that ultimately, if Nevadans want a first-class educational institution , they'll have to find more money.

Higher education officials work to get the best "bang for the buck," Sisolak said, but "there aren't enough bucks."

Sun reporter David McGrath Schwartz contributed to this story.