What Lags Well Behind Recovery to Full Employment? State Funding for Higher Ed!

Plesae scroll down to your SCUP Link, below this notice about SCUP–45.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

SCUP's Board of Directors met in Ann Arbor last weekend. The meeting kicked off with a presentation by Dennis Jones (of NCHEMS) highlighting the very serious financial position higher education institutions are in, especially public institutions. As Jones put it, we all know that unemployment is a lagging indicator. And collection of state sales taxes lags unemployment recovery. Plus, funding from the state for higher education lags increased state revenues and is simultaneously fighting with other state entities for a share of that budget. Mix into that, that financial-institution-based recessions are the slowest to recover, and the picture for higher ed indicates a slow recovery, and maybe never a full recovery in terms of state funding. As The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, it seems as though Standard & Poors agrees.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tempe, AZ - Step II and Step III

Grapevine 2010: A Critical Juncture for Higher Education in the US

If you're trying to look deep into the crystal ball at the future of support for higher education from the state, the latest Grapevine* report will help clarify the situation, but it isn't pretty. And it seems like nearly everyone is expecting further cuts, not only in the current fiscal year but in the next one.

* Grapevine has compiled data on state tax support for higher education sinde 1960. This year, the Illinois State University's Center for the Study of Higher Education Policy (CSHEP), which manages Grapevine, has joined forces with SHEEO and folded in that organization's State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) project. The collected data is served up in a number of useful ways on the Welcome to Grapevine, Fiscal Year 2009-10 website.

Links

• Official Press Release (PDF)
• The full Grapevine report, Welcome to Grapevine, Fiscal Year 2009-10
• SHEEO president Paul Lingenfelter's statement, A Critical Juncture for Higher Education in the United States (PDF)
• Analysis by Eric Kelderman in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Stimulus Money Staved Off Deep Cuts in State Appropriations
• Analysis by Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed, Historic Declines

Quoted from Lingenfelter:

In summary, the dimensions of the current financial and enrollment crisis are:

• More than 5% of FY 2010 appropriations are underwritten with federal stabilization funds that in many states are exhausted, or nearly so;
• State revenues have fallen at an unprecedented rate and a recovery will, at best, take many years according to the National Association of State Budget Officers; and
• Even with recent dramatic enrollment growth, current enrollments almost surely understate student demand, with many students who would otherwise enroll deterred by tuition increases and budget‐ driven enrollment caps and course cancellations.

But money and enrollment demand are not the only issues.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA