Budget reductions risk pursuit of quality
by Charles Steger '69
As I prepare these remarks, senior management here and at
other Virginia state colleges and universities are preparing scenarios to
accommodate major reductions in state appropriations. At
Virginia Tech we are looking at losses in base funding of 13 percent in the
coming fiscal year and about 17 percent in the following year. Adding in
the other losses in building repair and equipment budgets, that
translates into losses of more than $40 million by the second year of the
biennial budget.
Cuts like these represent a lot
of money no matter how you count.
Putting the cuts in perspective, consider this: the base
operating budgets for our two largest colleges, the College
of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering, are
$57 million and $36 million, respectively.
The state of Virginia is currently experiencing
historic revenue shortfalls and we will do our part to make do
with less. But the current policies harken back to a similar
situation in the early 1990s when the state balanced the
budget by using higher education. At that time higher
education comprised about 12 percent of the state budget but
absorbed about 40 percent of the reductions. Now state agencies
are cutting from 4 to 8 percent from operations, but
colleges must cough up more. While we can raise tuition (which
no one likes to do), there are both ethical and market
limits. Even after the tuition increase of nine percent (for both
in- and out-of-state students) approved by the Virginia
Tech Board of Visitors on March 18, we still must carve
about $25 million from operating and other budgets.
Our current governor did not create this problem.
Governor Mark Warner has said that Virginia's government
has structural problems with revenue collection and
taxation. We certainly hope that our elected leaders will finally
address these fundamental issues. But other fundamentals
need attention.
First, Virginia must come to grips with the old axiom
you can't get something for nothing. We have a denial of
reality in this state. The state's own analysis showed that
Virginia colleges and universities are underfunded by $240
million annuallyeven before this most recent carving.
Understanding the nature of investment and concomitant
return, business leaders have been for years urging the
commonwealth to increase its support of higher education.
It hurts to know that we will lose millions and millions
in base funding next year, when the state already has said that
we are underfunded by $24 million
annually (Tech's share of the aforementioned $240
million shortfall). The state will never have anything
more than merely adequate colleges and universities if it
continues to fund schools at a level less than 80 percent
of other states. (The former director of the state's
higher education board noted that, based on quality and
performance, Virginia has much better colleges than it
deserves.) With the latest round of reductions, we
likely will rank among the 10 lowest states in per capita
appropriations. That won't buy excellence.
The timeline for institution building or the slide
into mediocrity is measured in decades, not years. The
doors will not fall off next year by the loss of funding.
Students still will apply for admission. But over the
long term, chronic underfunding erodes the foundation
of quality and excellence. It will have an effect on the
kind of student attracted to Virginia Tech, the quality of
faculty, or, indeed, whether the doors get repaired.
I know that about half of you reading these
words reside outside Virginia. However, the message is the
same for all of us. No matter where you live, give some
thought to how and whether your state talks the
talkwhether there is a commitment to funding quality schools
and universities ... or whether there is the resolve to
invest in the physical infrastructure or the human capital
of tomorrow's America.
|