By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

There is an extremely high level of attention being given to the proposed level of cuts in the state General Fund for Nevada higher education.  Because of the degree of this focus, nearly any and all insights factor into building a better understanding of the overall situation.

When the budget numbers were first presented by Governor Gibbons and the percentage of reduction for higher education became known, the reason offered was that higher education could generate some of their own income.  One area for this revenue potential is tuition.

During our process of attempting to better understand the complete picture of where spending cut proposals fit into the total montage of the complex financial situation, we’ve been able to obtain more details.

UNR President, Dr. Milton Glick has shared that the University charges $129.50 per undergraduate credit hour as a student registration fee. This registration fee is commonly referred to as tuition and fees.  Of this amount, $83.52 per credit hour, or 65 percent, is included in the revenue stream used to fund the state appropriation to UNR, and the balance, $45.98 per credit hour (35 percent), is retained on campus.

Dr. Glick continued by sharing the rough calculations of the total results for these numbers, indicating that in terms of dollars, the amount appropriated by the state is roughly $30 Million and the amount retained on campus is about $16 Million.

In further details, Dr. Glick pointed out, “It is important to understand that the tuition and fees appropriated by the state are used to pay for faculty salaries, library books, financial aid and all the other activities you associate with the operation and functioning of the university. So these funds are already being used for the benefit of the students, which is a good thing.”

The problem side of this approach is that the way the budget is built, 65 percent of any tuition increase offsets the state general fund contribution.  In order for students to see any real benefit from an increase in services is to capture a greater amount retained by the campus.

“What I have advocated in the past,” President Glick shared, “is that any subsequent increases be fully retained by the campuses. This way, students will see real benefit for increased tuition instead of seeing most of the increase used to offset state general fund.”

As the Nevada Legislature deals with determining the funding allocations they will be putting into the budget for higher education, serious consideration should be given to UNR’s idea for dealing with tuition and fees. 

It might not be a final solution for higher education funding, but it builds a greater degree of accountability into the system, providing students with a sense of their payments going for on-campus benefit.