Higher-education cuts run deep

Aims student Franco Silva wants to make sure the state’s funding cuts to higher education don’t end up cutting him out of a degree in computer science.

Silva, who plans to enroll in a four-year computer-science program at either Colorado State University or a university in Texas, got on the telephone to check on the status of computer-science studies at CSU when he first heard about the cuts. He was assured that computer science wasn’t likely to be axed at CSU, but he remains leery.

“I don’t want to be in the middle of my program and they drop it,” Silva said. “It definitely made me think about it.”

Students, instructors and university officials in Northern Colorado are in the midst of one of the most-difficult budget years in recent history. Reduced funding from the state government has resulted in larger classes, fewer instructors and more limited course offerings at both community colleges and universities in the region.

Dramatic reductions

Aims and Front Range community colleges — along with the University of Northern Colorado and CSU — all have experienced dramatic budget reductions. In June, for example, CSU announced that its 2003-04 budget would represent a reduction in state funding of more than 25 percent. Cuts in state funding totaled more than $34.2 million.

State funding declined from 42.5 percent of FRCC’s budget in 2002-03 to 38.4 percent in 2003-04, said John Feeley, FRCC spokesman.

At UNC, the budget for college operations, which includes classroom instruction and support services, declined by $9 million.

Aims, meanwhile, experienced a reduction in state funding of approximately $3 million, said Mark Olson, Aims spokesman.

But all four institutions are braced for more fiscal difficulties ahead.

Michelle Quinn, assistant vice president of finance at UNC, said she sees a continuing budget crunch. Funding pressure from mandated spending for K-12 education, Medicaid and corrections — combined with TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) restrictions — will continue to squeeze funds for higher education, Quinn said.

“The pie can’t get any bigger than TABOR allows it to get,” Quinn said. Meanwhile, “the pieces of the pie for K-12 education are mandated to grow at a rate faster than inflation ? which means the higher education piece gets smaller.”

Tuition increases

Students around the region tend to be largely unaware of the changes budget difficulties have wrought, say student government representatives at area colleges and universities.

Except where changes are aimed at their pocketbooks.

CSU, FRCC and UNC all raised tuition for the 2003-04 school year.

“Students’ primary concern is tuition going up and they fear that it will go up to the point where they can’t cover it,´ said Katie Clausen, a CSU junior majoring in business administration and management. Clausen is vice president of Associated Students of Colorado State University.

Clausen noted that while class sizes have definitely increased at CSU, she hasn’t yet observed a change in the quality of instruction as a result.

Jason Brinkley, a junior at UNC studying political science, said that the budget crunch has wrought changes that are both positive and negative. Fewer class numbers has translated into more-concentrated instruction — resulting in a more-advanced level of study, “which is a positive thing,” Brinkley said. “But the negative is that class sizes are larger.”

Aims student Silva and Jeremy Ross, a sophomore at FRCC, said that while they see classes swelling in numbers, class sizes remain comparatively small.

“The school works really hard to make it so they only keep so much in class sizes,” Ross said. “They’ve only increased certain classes by one or two students, so there are still around 25 to 27 students in a class.”

“I hear the university horror tales of 300 in a class, so I feel bad saying 30 is bad,” Silva said.

Instructors, meanwhile, are feeling the pinch. The budget crunch has trimmed staff at all four institutions.

Alan Dinwiddie, president of the FRCC Larimer campus faculty senate, said the ratio of full-time to part-time faculty is out of balance. “We should have more full-time faculty, but we’re just not able to hire the new faculty that we need because of the budget restrictions.”

Dinwiddie said that means full-time instructors face a heavier load as mentoring duties swell along with administrative and instructional duties.

Growing enrollment at all four of the region’s higher-education facilities is putting a heavy burden on instructors.

“Many of our rooms are really packed,” Dinwiddie said. “A few times I’ve had to go get some extra chairs the first day of class.”

More-crowded classrooms mean more challenges for instructors, Dinwiddie said.

“It just makes it difficult for the faculty member to do some of the things they would like to do. I like to do group activities, but with the larger numbers in the classroom I’m just not able to do as much of that as I would like,” he said.

Situation demoralizing

The situation is demoralizing for professionals who pride themselves on the quality of instruction they deliver, said C.W. Miller, chairman of the faculty council at CSU. Miller, a professor in the biomedical sciences department, is former interim head of that department. He was recently named associate department head in charge of undergraduate studies.

Not only do tenured faculty at CSU teach more, but they also must fill in the gaps left by shrinking numbers of support staff, Miller said.

Administrators, staff and student leaders at all four schools have responded to budget cuts with careful top-to-bottom scrutiny of operations. At UNC, for instance, a process called “Charting the Future” is under way.

“We’re looking to identify ways of investing what funds we have in doing the best job that we can,” UNC’s Quinn said.

The higher-education community in Northern Colorado is bracing, meanwhile, for more cuts that undoubtedly lie ahead.

“We are sort of on pins and needles wondering what the state will do for this fiscal year,” Olson said. “The cuts will certainly not be as draconian this year as last year, but if you follow the stories, higher education is always a likely target.”

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