Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Think anew about higher education

As a former part-time business instructor at UNLV for five years with a stepson attending college at UNR, I know all too well the budget predicament the Nevada higher education system faces. But many of the most dire predictions involve closing whole campuses in the face of draconian budget cuts. This is wholly unrealistic as it would shut off complete access to a large geographical area of the state one way or the other.

However, it does bring up an interesting question. Why do we attempt to offer so many duplicate fields of study across the state? Many of the land grant state universities in the Midwest seem to emphasize one or the other between sciences and the arts (Iowa-Iowa State; Kansas-Kansas State as examples).

Though there are still many duplications, one often has more of the science and technical programs and the other leans more toward liberal arts and the humanities. Nevada needs to consider this on a more radical scale.

Why should UNLV and UNR both offer history, English, engineering, and hotel management degrees, just to name a few? It is not necessary to have all degrees offered in all places. The very worst that would happen is that a Nevada resident would have to reside in another part of the state during his college years while still getting one of the least expensive public college degrees in the nation. If we have to come to hard decisions, I would rather see this than any campus closed or tuitions raised dramatically.

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