Higher Education – The Canary in the Coal Mine
Recently, a couple of headlines caught my attention. From Red states. From Blue states. From the Northwest. From the Southwest. All saying the same thing….
Budget Deficits
While there is specific uniqueness in each situation (especially Arizona—wow), they all have the same basic issue---revenue is down, expenses are up, and money is running out.
My prediction from the cheap seats--over the next couple of years, small cuts around the edges are not going to solve this issue (overall). Take my home state of Nebraska. We have three state universities (not counting the academic medical center). With a population of around two million people and a total number of non-medical campus students of about 45,000 in totality, do we need three business schools, three schools of education, three schools of arts and sciences, etc.? From a pure numbers perspective, I am not sure that we do. And by the way, this doesn’t include any of the private schools (Creighton, Nebraska Wesleyan, etc.) or the smaller regional state schools (Wayne State, Peru State, etc.) that have much of the same offerings.
And here is a tougher question for not only the Nebraska universities but all who are going through cuts…when do the small cuts degrade the overall impact well beyond the harder, more political decisions? That one I am not smart enough to answer. But I am intelligent enough to ask.
Without state increases in financial support, the above will be more of the norm over the next decade. And worse if young people continue to resist the urge to go to college and start after high school in the workforce. I am not sure of the answer, but everyone better pay attention.
