DOES MISSOURI SPENDING MEASURE UP?

THE FUNDING DILEMMA IN HIGHER EDUCATION

(Fourth in a series)

Missouri appropriates more than $637 million a year on operating expenses for higher education. Still, the state ranks near the bottom nationally in some comparisons regarding state funding for higher education, educators say.

Missouri is spending less than $124 per capita on higher education compared to the national average of $165, funding statistics show.

In terms of appropriation per $1,000 of personal income, Missouri spends $7.58 on higher education compared to the national average of $9.39.

Missouri spends about $3,600 per public-college student, ranking it 36th among the states, show statistics compiled by Research Associates of Washington, D.C.

Alaska tops the list, spending slightly more than $10,000 per student.

Gwen Pruyne, managing editor of Grapevine, a monthly report that tracks state funding for education in the 50 states, said such comparisons are difficult to make. "You get into a lot of problems comparing states because they are so different," said Pruyne, who works for the Center for Higher Education at Illinois State University in Normal. The center gathers statistics on higher-education funding nationwide.

While Missouri ranks low in per-capita appropriations, the state appropriates more money for higher education than many states that rank higher on the per-capita list.

For example, Nebraska and Iowa rank ninth and 10th on the per-capita list for funding for higher education, but neither spends as much money as Missouri in terms of state funding for colleges and universities, show statistics compiled by the Center for Higher Education.

Combined, states will spend $40.8 billion on higher education in the current 1990-91 fiscal year, about 12 percent more than they did two years ago.

State appropriations for higher education in Missouri have increased by 16 percent over the past two fiscal years, said the center. "That puts Missouri in the top half of the states" in that category, said Pruyne.

But Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast Missouri State University, said the rankings don't take into account the state funds for higher education in Missouri that were withheld or vetoed by the governor.

In the current fiscal year alone, nearly $1.8 million of Southeast's budget was withheld by Gov. John Ashcroft, who statewide withheld 5.5 percent of funding for higher education because of tight state finances.

Over the past 10 years, more than $8 million in state funding for Southeast has been withheld or vetoed by Missouri governors, university budget figures show.

Statistics from the Center for Higher Education show that over a 10-year period, from the 1981 to the 1991 fiscal year, state funding for higher education in Missouri increased by 86 percent. Funding increased from more than $342 million to more than $637 million over the 10-year period, an increase of almost $295 million.

Ashcroft has said there has been a 97 percent increase in state funding since 1982 for four-year colleges and universities in Missouri. But, according to Missourians for Higher Education, an organization representing nearly 50 public and private, two- and four-year colleges and universities in the state, the purchasing power of Missouri's appropriations has declined 9 percent over the last 10 years as a result of inflation.

Nationally, the lowest 10-year increase in funding for higher education was 57 percent in West Virginia. The highest was in Maine, where funding went up 213 percent, the center's statistics show.

On average nationally, state funding for higher education increased by 95 percent over the 10-year period.

Pruyne said people should not be "led astray" by numbers.

"Those numbers change, but, if a state is consistently not doing very well, then I think the citizens have to put a little pressure on them (state legislatures) to give higher education a little higher priority," she said.

Richard Novak of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) said higher education is facing funding woes nationwide.

The rate of increase in state support for higher education has dropped to a 30-year low, educators say.

"It's pretty bad," said Novak, who heads AASCU's Center for State Higher Education Policy and Finance in Washington, D.C.

He said mid-year budget cuts have occurred in 26 states.

To cope with limited state funding, public colleges and universities have had to raise tuition. Nationally, the average increase is about 12 percent.

Students at the University of Missouri could face an 83 percent fee hike over the next five years, school officials say.

Missourians for Higher Education says that between fiscal years 1978 and 1988, the burden of financing public and higher education has increasingly shifted from the state to the student. Tuition per student at Missouri's public colleges and universities has more than doubled over the past 10 years.

A decade ago at Southeast, tuition amounted to less than 15 percent of the university's operating budget, Wallhausen said. In contrast, for the 1991-92 academic year, students will be paying over 30 percent of the operating costs.

At the same time, state funding for the upcoming fiscal year is expected to total about 64 percent of the operating budget compared with 80 percent in the 1980 fiscal year, Wallhausen said.

Novak said the nation's economic woes have had a major impact on state budgets, resulting in budget cuts.

He said it's a particular problem in California and in New York. "The California budget deficit is 25 percent of its budget," he said. "All the northeastern states are in a dire situation."

Novak said that nationally, tuition hikes can only make up part of the revenue lost in state funding cuts. "The rest of it will come in cuts on the campus level," he said. That would include cuts in both faculty and non-teaching personnel.

"A number of states face caps on enrollment," he said. A couple states have already implemented such limitations and several other states are considering such a move for the coming school year.

Novak said the funding outlook looks grim for higher education, at least for the immediate future.

Federal mandates, particularly in the area of Medicaid, have cut into the discretionary portion of state budgets, further cutting into state appropriations for higher education, Novak said.

Public colleges and universities such as Southeast have established foundations to raise private funds. But, Novak said, private gifts and donations account for only a small amount of the funding for the nation's public colleges and universities. "It is not going to make up the difference" in lost revenue from state budget cuts, said Novak.

(Thursday: A look at the growing role of private contributions and student fees and the impact of state funding shortfalls on student grants.)