Colorado colleges in a hole
Years of cuts put state nearly last in public aid
By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published April 28, 2008 at midnight
Updated April 28, 2008 at 9:34 a.m.
Photo by Dennis Schroeder © The Rocky
Construction on a new science building at Metropolitan State College of Denver continued last week even in the face of funding cuts that threaten the project. Teachers and students say current facilities are overcrowded and run down.
Three hundred students can't start nursing school at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs because there isn't enough lab space.
At Metropolitan State College of Denver, one in four students drop out after their first semester; the rate is higher for minority students. Officials acknowledge that the lack of full-time instructors is part of the problem.
There are so few labs at the more than 30-year-old Auraria campus science building that almost 2,000 students a year take human biology courses without setting foot in a lab.
These are just a few examples of how more than $126 million in higher education cuts this decade have played out at the state's public colleges and universities. Those cuts have put Colorado almost dead last in public support for higher education, a national study concludes.
Lawmakers and Gov. Bill Ritter are pitching legislation and initiatives to bolster college budgets, but it's not clear how many of those plans will become reality.
The latest proposal, a ballot measure aimed at increasing state revenue from oil and gas drilling for college scholarships, won't go far to help institutions improve teaching and facilities, officials say.
While CU President Bruce Benson applauds efforts to help students pay for school, he is concerned about the lack of dollars in the proposal for salaries, utilities and other operating costs.
Despite all the talk about fixing the funding crisis, these initiatives don't generate anywhere near the money necessary - more than $700 million a year, according to one recent study - to pull higher ed funding even with the national average.
"There's a long way to go," said Evan Dreyer, Ritter's spokesman.
'Breaking point'
The budget problem has reached a "breaking point," said Richard Schweigert, chief financial officer for Colorado State University. "Higher ed's been saying now literally for about eight or nine years: 'Look, you're falling behind with us, and you're starting to affect quality.'
"I think now that is clearly demonstrable to anybody who looks at it."
The hole in the ground at Speer Boulevard and Arapahoe Street, which is supposed to be the site of the new Auraria science building, has become perhaps the most visible symbol of the funding problem.
Excavation began on the $120 million building last December. In March, lawmakers suddenly pulled additional funding when the state budget for construction dropped.
The state has partially restored funding to higher education since Referendum C passed in 2005. Ref C allows the state to keep revenue for five years that otherwise would go back to taxpayers under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.
The state budget has allocated an additional $52 million for college operating costs next year, for a total of $680 million.
Lawmakers, with Ritter's support, also have introduced Senate Bill 218, which would tap tax revenue from oil and gas extraction on federal lands in Colorado to help finance renovations and new construction on campuses.
That could bring colleges and universities hundreds of millions of dollars, enough money to finish the Auraria science building, among other projects. But the revenue stream could be lower if drilling does not occur on the Roan Plateau as expected.
"It is the best chance we've had in a long time to get well," said David Skaggs, executive director of the state Department of Higher Education.
Robert Moore, vice president for budget and finance at CU, said state leaders are recognizing "that there is a true problem."
"For years there was talk, and now there's some action," he said.
Picture turns bleak
Colleges and universities get much of their money from tuition and state aid. Colorado has never had a stellar record of spending on higher ed. But the financial picture turned truly bleak in 2002 when the state cut $52 million to colleges and universities. The cuts continued until 2005.
There are several reasons.
First, there's no mandate to fund higher education. So, when the economy tanked and tax revenues dropped, the state cut higher education to cover other costs.
Restrictions in the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and other laws on how much the state can raise and spend also put a squeeze on operating dollars for colleges and universities.
The cuts were even deeper for campus construction.
In fiscal year 2000-2001, the state allocated $151 million to higher education capital projects. Two years later, the state appropriated less than $7 million. That meant renovation and construction to replace structures built in the 1960s weren't done. CSU got no state money for capital projects in 2004 and 2005.
Funding for campus operations and construction has been climbing since 2005, but still hasn't reached the per-student level it was in 2002 in either category.
Ref C "helped avoid a deeper hole," Skaggs said, "but it didn't help fill the hole that was already there."
Skaggs said Colorado has cut funding for higher education more than any other state since the recession of 2001-2002. That's hurt the ability of colleges to recruit top professors. Schools also have been forced to rely on part- time instructors and have delayed updating classrooms and buildings with newer technology.
At Metro State, adminstrators are working to hire more tenure-track faculty, who are paid to spend more time with students. The goal is to have 60 percent of the instruction hours taught by full-timers; right now, it is in the 40s.
Too few full-time faculty
CU also has struggled with keeping tenure-track faculty.
At the Denver and Colorado Springs campuses, fewer than half the credit hours are taught by tenure-track professors, Moore said.
Overall, he said, professors are paid up to 15 percent less than at peer universities, so it's hard to attract top talent.
"We have difficulty getting our No. 1 choice in faculty search," he said. "That's not a good sign."
The UCD School of Medicine gets the lowest amount of state funding of any public medical school in the country, officials said. Radiologists, neurologists and internists formerly on staff have left in recent years to go into private practice, which pays significantly more.
Many who leave still teach part time for free, said Richard Krugman, the medical school dean. "We are begging them (to teach)," he said.
Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, a former member of the CU Board of Regents, said she has seen the harm caused by funding cuts. She also has seen neighboring states put a stronger emphasis on higher education and lure away Colorado professors.
Schwartz said she and other lawmakers have been working on SB 218 for a year.
"We now can start to chip away on the mountain of (capital) projects," she said. Potential revenues, however, are "a drop in the bucket when you look at the overall needs," she added.
Higher education, Schwartz said, needs a permanent funding stream for operating expenses, but "it's not a possibility this year."
Tracking the funding crisis
The Colorado legislature slashed funding for higher education operating expenses between 2002 and 2005, causing schools to struggle to keep top faculty and update and improve programs.
Year/ State funds for public colleges/ % change from year before/ Funding per Colorado student
2000-2001 $613 million 3.5% $5,228
2001-2002 $618 million 0.8% $5,062
2002-2003 $566 million -8.4% $4,330
2003-2004 $496 million -12.4% $3,632
2004-2005 $491 million -1.0% $3,545
2005-2006 $534 million 8.0% $3,918
2006-2007 $579 million 8.4% $4,337
2007-2008 $628 million 8.4% $4,640*
2008-2009 $680 million 8.3% n/a
kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361
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April 28, 2008
2:05 a.m.
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freethinker07 writes:
Terrible article. The headline on the home page quotes a national study that is not mentioned in the article.
TABOR requires that any increase in taxation be approved by voters. Why don't legislators ask voters for a tax increase if they think it's a good idea? Why doesn't Senator Schwartz introduce legislation to ask voters for permission to raise taxes? Why didn't Kim ask this question? Legislators love to blame TABOR but none of them seem to be willing to utilize its provisions to increase taxes.
April 28, 2008
3:15 a.m.
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windbourne writes:
Bensen has it right. The idea of increasing severence taxes is not to replace tuition costs, but to increase funding to the school. During the owen's time, funding plummeted. Keep in mind that what has brought in relatively high pay in this state was our high education standard. Now, we have lowered our education amongst the population while at the same time, countries like India and China have increased theirs. Basically, we are losing our jobs to other places BECAUSE we are not far ahead in education.
BTW, for those of you that say that these job loses do not impact you, let me point out that most money earned here is re-spent. With companies like QWest, verizon, Lucent, ATT, etc sending jobs to India, there is far less money going around here.
April 28, 2008
4:28 a.m.
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LOUIE writes:
While the republican Mr. Benson recovers from the slap in the chops landed by the democrat Mr. Ritter; I don't expect education at CU to change much until the politicians in both parties get on the same page. I think the money Mr. Benson can raise is extremely important. The governor on the other hand has his agenda as to how it is spent. Politics can be quite a distraction to institutions such as education. Seems nothing ever changes except the combatants in these never ending party fueds of Democrat Verses Republican. Thier fights overshadow the needs of our country, and only serve to polarize our people. They wrap themselves in the flag of our country as they divide our nation. Vote for what? The next combatant? One day I hope our nation finds a real leader, one who can sow this patchwork quilt back together again.
April 28, 2008
5:32 a.m.
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windbourne writes:
Q,
I remember owens saying the exact same thing about Colorado's budget concerning our using TABOR money on expanding i-25 and taking care of other work. Once Owens got in there, he found out that it was a tight ship and he was incapable of cutting more than .5% (and that was simply political differences). As such, he borrowed from his buddies in Texas by using future expected money from the feds. IOW, he lied and did an end run, and was joined by all the other pubs. I suspect that since we had 8 years of owens and hank brown ran CU for several years that CU (and all higher education) has little extra money to cut.
Bear in mind that for the last 15 years, I have been a libertarian and have liked and even pushed for tax cuts. But every good Libertarian loves a balanced budget more than less tax. In the end, it is lack of balanced budgets that is slaughtering the feds and still killing Co. Wether money is a direct deficit (the 300+ billion federal deficit that is reported yearly), or borrowed money (such as feds do with our SS and the pubs did with the roads in CO), it is still stealing from the future.
April 28, 2008
5:58 a.m.
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roger44 writes:
You hit the nail on the head Louie. And the previous post also, waste and fraud. Boot out any student that does not make their best effort in college, make room for the ones that make the grade, as they say. Why waste an education on a party animal with low grades. Spending more money does not equate to better education. Put a "none of the above" box on ballots, send a message to them in state and federal Government, we want politicians who will do the job, not there just for the benefits, they are part of the problem. Stop wasting time figuring out how to help the farmer get cheap help, not the taxpayers problem if they want to pay 6 bucks an hr and can't find help. Who the heck cares if a baseball player is on steroids? Congress has better things to tackle, like Social security.
April 28, 2008
6:07 a.m.
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Alive writes:
Until contemporary colleges become true places of learning, rather than socialist indoctrination centers money should be withheld. I dare say that fervent adhesion to only "progressive" ideals is tantamount to a religion.
All sides of any issue must be given for real education, otherwise there is no real value to the wholeness of the individual. It is more than a disservice, it is a crime.
April 28, 2008
6:56 a.m.
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glowrock writes:
Am I the only one here who wasn't the victim of some sort of evil indoctrination by the college(s) I attended? Maybe it's because I have a SCIENCE degree that kept a lot of politics out of the equation, but still, what the he*l is everyone talking about here? Colleges and Universities are about learning, they're not about indoctrination. Certainly in a political science course there's going to be tons of political discussion, but politics was never really brought up in many of my lib arts courses, either!
I think too many people here equate entire universities and higher education systems with one or two bad apples who happened to make headlines. It's pathetic!
April 28, 2008
7:20 a.m.
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VVVV writes:
My oldest just turned 3, and I am already saving to send him to an out of state school. There may be a solution, but I don't really care. Higher education is a business, and as a consumer, I'm going to expect my kids to select the best product, regardless of whether my taxes have helped support it. All those kids who come here from out of state and flunk out are helping to cover the costs of the school, and are actually making things better. After all when they stop showing up half way through the semester, the student to teacher ratio only improves. Plus, they spend as much or more partying and skiing, helping out the economy even more. Just consider them long term tourists, and play up the party school image to attract more flunkies blowing daddy's money. That way we get the money without ever having to have the school buildings to teach them.
Or the voters could be asked to raise taxes, but I guess that is just too much work when there are people complaining about the traffic on I-70, the cost of gasoline, or the end all be all of our state, the DNC.
April 28, 2008
7:47 a.m.
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holekeeper writes:
where will this new 9.5% increase go to? CU got it CSU is asking for it, I mean where does it go if we are not improving things at the schools.
April 28, 2008
7:53 a.m.
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bxwatso writes:
freethinker07
Why not ask for a tax increase? Because the Government did ask voters for a tax increase to fund higher education. It was called Ref. C, and it will have raised $6bln extra by the time it expires. The primary stated purpose of Ref. C was to support education, especially higher education.
The Government is fully funded, the question is what are they doing with all the money? Another question is why should we approve yet another "education" tax increase when the current government can't be trusted to spend the money where it was promised to go.
April 28, 2008
7:55 a.m.
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kathyM writes:
"At Metropolitan State College of Denver, one in four students drop out after their first semester....Officials acknowledge that the lack of full-time instructors is part of the problem."
What? Since when do full-time instructors cause student retention? And since when do part-time instructors cause student attrition?
"Three hundred students can't start nursing school at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs because there isn't enough lab space."
Nursing shortage + hyper-recruitment + no PLANNING = nursing students who can't start classes. Don't blame the state for your poor planning, CSU! (Maybe you can get some of those professors off their hineys to teach on evenings and weekends, when the labs are empty.)
April 28, 2008
7:57 a.m.
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kathyM writes:
Oops, excuse me--I mean CU/CS!
April 28, 2008
8:16 a.m.
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kodijack writes:
1) A lot of tenured professors are overpaid. 2) The cost of tuition is absolutely outrageous. 3) A university education is overrated, however, try to get a decent career started without one. 4) TABOR was a great idea as it handcuffed legislators, but taxes work long term and having our overpaid income taxes returned to us was asinine.
April 28, 2008
8:17 a.m.
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Decemvir writes:
Why can't a percentage of lottery money be used for capital projects?
April 28, 2008
9:13 a.m.
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buffsblg writes:
Decemvir
Because the lottery money is constitutionally pledged to go elsewhere. The voters of this state love to enshrine spending requirements in the constitution and that limits flexibility in dealing with funding priorities.
It always amuses and saddens me that this board is dominated by people who are so against education and learning. The bottom line is that education is an investment. A better educated populace leads to higher long term incomes and a higher tax base. Universities also fund basic research that assist society in general. The refusal of this state to fund basic maintenance of their universities will hurt us in the long run, as our smartest kids leave to go elsewhere to learn (for those that can afford it) and those who stay home get a substandard education.
by the way kodijack, tuition is high because universities have to use tuition increases to pay bills that used to be paid by the state. As to professors being overpaid, just like in any area, pay is what the market will bear. If other state universities pay more, the best leave.
April 28, 2008
9:26 a.m.
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kirbysfriend22 writes:
I always read that this state has such a highly educated populace. But I see how poorly education is funded. That poor funding will catch up with us. The only reason Colorado has had such a highly educated work force is beccause people have been moving here from other states, education already in hand. We've been lucky with that. Some folks will continue to come here with an education. But as the population grows and more native Coloradoans are born, grow and head to school, our percentages of citizens with degrees will drop because of the lack in education funding and support.
buffsblg, you made some accurate comments. It always amazes me to see so many education-haters on these posts. I have my theories on them, which I will keep to myself.
Tuition keeps climbing because there's less support from tax money and these Colorado institutions are worth money that big. More kids will start leaving for school and staying away once they find jobs. We're lucky we've got these mountains to keep bringing people in.
April 28, 2008
10:56 a.m.
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joggle writes:
The funding for higher education in Colorado is truly awful. All posters that want professors to be paid less are ignoring reality (as usual). We live in a free market where professors can get jobs wherever they want. So if a university in Massachusetts (or Kansas for that matter) can afford to pay a professor $50,000 more per year than CU where do you think this professor is going to go? CU can usually only get the lower tier professors that will work for less--leading to less prestige for CU, less demand for an education at CU and causing them to have even more difficulty getting top-tier professors. With the funding CU gets compared to public universities in other states it's amazing they're doing as well as they are.
It's not only higher education. I went to a high school near Austin, TX that received significantly more funding per student than a similar school in Colorado Springs that I also attended. Even so, they could easily pass a ballot measure for a large bond in Texas to expand the school (with virtually no on-air adds) whereas in Colorado Springs they weren't able to pass a much smaller bond with lots of on-air adds to expand the school (Doherty) despite its desperate need for expansion because conservative people here would rather deal with poor public services than see the slightest increase in taxes. Doherty didn't even use buses for high school due to lack of funds, used temporary buildings for years and had computers from the early 80s in their computer lab in 1997. What a joke!
April 28, 2008
11:43 a.m.
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Ztliano writes:
No tax increase for school. School is a WASTE of time & money (i have a bs deggree). I know it was a waste. I'd rather increase tax for universal health care.
April 28, 2008
11:48 a.m.
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joggle writes:
Ztliano: Get an engineering degree then. Believe me, those are not a waste of money.
April 28, 2008
12:22 p.m.
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kodijack writes:
Why do tax rates have to go up? If something cost .50 before and was taxed at 5% then the tax doubles when the cost of the item is $1.00. Stop raising the tax rates and make better use of the tax money that is being received. Look at Detroit, MI. they had some of the highest tax rates in the United States and that did not help them to save their city. I am positive that there is too much overhead in the college system. So start there and then work your way down.
April 28, 2008
1:37 p.m.
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joggle writes:
kodijack: And what information leads you to believe that there's too much overhead in the college system? Have you actually read their lengthy financial reports? Do you know an administrator of any university?
The tax rate needs to be increased because the salary of university tenured professors is increasing at a rate higher than inflation. Also, B.S. degrees are in higher demand than in the past so a larger proportion of the population is taking advantage of public universities. Jobs in the US have been switching from low-skill factory jobs to higher skilled technical jobs for the past two decades which is certainly also playing a factor.
So universities need more money per student than in the past to pay for more expensive professors and expand the university to handle the larger student population.
April 28, 2008
3:40 p.m.
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Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:
Tabor was stroke of Liberty. All 50 states and the Feds need a Tabor. What’s wrong with Gov only growing at the rate of inflation plus population? Seems like those who make their living from the government dole are the only ones complaining.
April 28, 2008
3:51 p.m.
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DougH writes:
Ever wonder why Colorado is the only one of 50 states with TABOR ?
It is a crackpot anti-government measure designed as a Libertarian social experiment in dismantling government by eliminating sources of revenue. We are now seeing the fruits of TABOR and it is not a good sight. I am sure our children and grand children will be pleased that this generation has screwed up their future and they will get to pay for everything we were to cheap and selfish to do.
April 28, 2008
4:30 p.m.
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joggle writes:
Lowtaxequalsfreedom: Because we live in a world where people have choices. If you want to see good public education here than the salaries must be high enough to attract the top educators. Otherwise they will work elsewhere. What about this is difficult for you to understand?
In addition, if a greater proportion of the population wants a degree from a public university then either a) they will have less money per student without an increase in taxes or b) taxes must be increased to maintain equivalent spending per student as previous years (never mind the increase in professor pay).
All of the other 49 states and Feds WILL NOT EVER pass a Tabor law. Even if they did, professors can easily get jobs overseas so that solves nothing about the woeful inadequacies of the American education system vs. the rest of the industrialized world.
The Federal government has tried for 8 years to do more with less money. The result? The highest trade and spending deficits in history with the least popular administration since polls have been taken. Good job guys.
April 28, 2008
4:31 p.m.
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Diff writes:
See: the first rule of holes,
1) when you find yourself in one - stop digging.