Editorial: CU marketing critics on the wrong track

Cause, meet effect.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that complaints would erupt as soon as the University of Colorado’s contract for naming rights to the new A Line train between Denver International Airport and Union Station became public.

The $5 million contract with the Regional Transportation District designates the route the “University of Colorado A Line.” Passengers will see a video about the university airing in a continuous loop, and CU will be able to place ads on the train’s exterior. The campaign promotes all CU campuses, with funding coming from CU Boulder, CU Denver and the Anschutz Medical Campus.

It’s a hefty price tag, and critics immediately pounced, lambasting the wastefulness of marketing the university in such a way. “Why not spend that money on student education?” was the general theme, even as CU president Bruce Benson was blasted for defending the initiative.

Yet, many of those same critics undoubtedly have stood by — or outright supported — the slashing of public funding for higher education in this state for much of the past decade. Colorado ranks 48th nationally in terms of state funding for higher education per capita, according to a study by the Boulder-based State Higher Education Executive Officers Association and the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University.

State higher-ed funding totaled $158.51 per capita in fiscal year 2016, according to the study, behind only New Hampshire ($92.50) and Arizona ($115.83). Colorado also ranks at or near the bottom, year after year, in state funding per full-time-equivalent student.

The result: a surge in tuition, as universities have struggled to replace millions of dollars in state funding.

What do opponents of this marketing deal expect? Those who have stood by as higher-ed spending has been slashed were the first to complain about higher tuition, and they were the first to complain about a marketing campaign intended to boost the profile of the university so that it can attract more students who can pay the tuition burden foisted on universities by the Legislature and the inaction of the voters.

We only wish that those who are expressing outrage at a $5 million expenditure would voice outrage at the slashing of millions in state funds that have made it necessary.

Those who cause a problem shouldn’t complain about the solution.

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