By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

No recipient of Nevada state budgetary allocations have made more noise than the Nevada System of Higher Education about their conviction that tax increases – not budget reductions – should be the course followed in considering potential options.  This was again the central theme of the opinion piece in the December 28th Reno Gazette entitled “State Needs To Make Education A Priority”.  http://www.rgj.com/article/20081228/OPED/812280330/1098/OPED

The author of the piece, Vito de la Cruz, shared his ideas that education is a vital and critical component of our society.  He also indicated that in national comparisons, Nevada’s higher education system doesn’t stack up very well.  He indicated that our state has one of the highest dropout rates in the country and one of the lowest rates of high school students who attend college.

As we did with the post from yesterday, “Educate Us About Educational Finances” we recommend that before we get into the back and forth of “tax increase vs budget cuts”, a solid understanding of our current situation would be helpful.  

In some ways it might be more complicated to get a complete accounting of the state’s higher education system than other segments of Nevada’s total educational picture.  There are multiple sources of financial support going into financing the state’s higher education system.  Each institution, which makeup the total network of higher education, also has their specific mix of resources available for expenditures. 

Having made note of this consideration, it still is very possible for each area of the state’s higher education system to be identified (as well as each individual college within the University framework).  In addition to the specifics of what revenue streams flow in from Nevada’s various state budget allocations, we also need to understand the amount of income from national and other government sources.  Institutions which receive funding for research activities should identify these amounts as well as the totals earmarked from these sources for administrative overhead (or whatever the title given to financing the operations of the institution).  Tuition, donations and all other forms of income should also be spelled out for a complete picture of just how much support is given to higher education already.

We full understand that those involved in higher education are of the mindset that the problem is that more financial support is necessary, especially from state of Nevada coffers, but we are also of the opinion that overall Nevada Higher Education has received significant levels of support.  We also believe that this level of support has been trending up, increasing more and more each legislative session (over the past several).

Once the income side of the picture has been covered, we’d be interested in learning the details of how financial expenditures fit into categories.  Instruction and other in-the-classroom costs need to be explained with information that helps us get some insight on what goes into the system we’re supposed to be supporting beyond what our current financial ability might be able to handle. 

Other expenses, that don’t fit into the operations of educational programs should also be described with the purpose of helping us to be more aware of what the business of higher education is all about.
 
From the perspective of where University officials believe more spending should be directed, Chancellor Rogers has identified his priorities in this news article -- and we recommend it to you to see his views on necessary increased support...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28145836/

Because of the variety of our agricultural interests in the higher education system, we’re very mindful of the importance this system plays in our state’s future.  We too have a number of areas within the higher education system that we'd like to see increased in priority.

Whether that importance can only be accomplished (for agricultural and all other Nevada citizens) through tax increases, depends on how well we can come to understand the requests being asked.