Editorial

MORE FUNDING, FEWER FTE STUDENTS IN COLLEGE

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A new national study warns about Missouri's future funding for higher education funding. The study suggests Missouri and 37 other states face possible crises for the next eight years.

Currently, the state ranks a respectable 17th in support of publicly funded higher education.

The study, conducted by State Policy Research Corp., bases its prediction on a projection that state revenue will decline. That may be. Bit who could have predicted the current economic boom would last so long?

Missouri certainly has demonstrated a huge budget commitment to higher education. That isn't likely to change overnight. In Gov. Mel Carnahan's proposed budget for fiscal 2001, higher-education expenditures would top $1.15 billion, an increase of $55.57 million over the current fiscal year.

But compare that to fiscal 1991, when the state spent $641.28 million on higher education institutions and their academic programs.

Government must learn to live within its means. Few families have doubled their incomes in the last five years, but that's just what has happened to the higher education budget. That kind of growth would be hard to sustain indefinitely.

Despite significant spending increases over the past nine years in Missouri, the number of full-time-equivalent students at public institutions across the state has decreased.

By the state's own reckoning, FTE students at all state-supported four-year colleges and universities will reach 92,784, compare to the fall of 1991 when the enrollment figure was more than 97,500.

There may be more students on many state university campuses today, but these students are likely taking fewer hours. Colleges and universities are reaching out to nontraditional students who are likely to take smaller class loads because of full-time jobs and other commitments. As such, it takes more students to add up to fewer FTEs.

When the current economic boom ends, all of state government may be forced to tighten belts and look for ways to make the most of tax dollars. Living within a budget is what individuals and businesses do every day.