SEMO graduate asks state House colleagues for more money for alma mater

This story is updated.

State Rep. Kevin Windham Jr. wants Southeast Missouri State University — his alma mater — to receive more state budget funding.

House lawmakers debated fiscal year 2023's operating budget this week in Jefferson City. The fiscal year referred to runs from July 1 through June 30, 2023.

Windham, who studied corporate communications at Southeast, offered an amendment to House Bill 3003 to increase SEMO's funding by $10 million over what the House Budget Committee approved.

HB 3003 is the appropriations bill for the Missouri Department of Higher Education.

The House rejected Windham's amendment on a voice vote.

According to a Capitol source, Windham has argued the bump in funding to SEMO is justified to achieve parity with University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

Windham has argued Central Missouri serves fewer students than SEMO but receives $10 million more in a state funding allotment.

Windham, a Democrat, has represented District 85 in the General Assembly's lower chamber since his election in 2018, a constituency based in St. Louis County.

At age 25, Windham was the youngest Black man ever elected to the state legislature.

Drilling down

According to a statistical table compiled by the state Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, SEMO's student headcount in the past five years has been higher than Central Missouri's only once — in Fall 2020.

The statistical table may be accessed at http://dhewd.mo.gov/data and clicking on "Enrollment Report for Missouri Public and Comprehensive Independent Institutions."

At the start of 2020-2021 academic year, SEMO had total enrollment of 9,984 compared to Central Missouri's 9,959. In every other year dating back to 2016-2017, Central Missouri's reported student headcount has been higher than the Cape Girardeau-based school.

Statewide

Enrollment in the state's four-year public universities mainly has taken a tumble in recent years.

Of the 13 so-called "state schools," only Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville has seen an overall enrollment increase in the past five years.

Northwest is up 20.5% in student headcount while every other state public four-year university is notably down.

University of Central Missouri has seen a 24.7% decline. SEMO's drop over the period is 16.6%.

Central Missouri celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2021. SEMO was founded in 1873 and university president Carlos Vargas has said a series of commemorative events is being planned to mark Southeast's sesquicentennial.