CAMPUS AND AREA
University Daily Kansan, November 11. 1983
Page 8
Review
continued from p. 1
If the Regents review back up its stated purpose, the new face of higher education will certainly include fewer degree programs and possibly fewer faculty to teach them.
BEFORE THIS DECADE, growing state budgets and increasing full-time equivalent enrolments brought new programs and new faculty to KU year after year.
The rapidly growing enrollment of the previous two decades made money available for degree programs where there had once been none. This allowed shaphs a devoted professor teachin a few classes.
Welcome to 1983. Full fall full-time equivalent enrollment at KU has fallen in the past three years. The percentage of the state's general fund allocated for academic expenses is 19 percent, after falling below 20 percent in 1981.
After many decades of program expansion, this decade has been one of austerity. No new faculty positions have been created in the past two years, requests for new programs are being discouraged by the Regents and adjustment for areas of high demand is almost non-existent.
Kansan graphic by Bill Wylie
THE RÉGENTS SYSTEM, including KU, apparently bit off more in good times than it could be in the financially austerous 1980s. As a result, the firm's hard look at merging or eliminating programs.
University faculty are struggling to pass a University Senate policy to protect their futures, not knowing whether their policy will do them any good.
Last month, just before they approved the results of the first round of their program review, the Regents listed several general reasons for the review process. One they left out, perhaps because it was not lofty enough or maybe because it was just too obvious, was
Bibb was the state budget director from 1938 to 1980 before he came to the University. Although he emphasized that his views did not necessarily represent those of the University, he does speak
Two leading factors in the growth of the University before 1980, Bibb said, are the state economy and the way universities are compensated for rising enrollments.
JAMES BIBB, KU associate director of business affairs, knows more about higher education finance in Kansas than most people could ever learn, or want to learn.
After the Kansas Legislature cut taxes during the 1979 session, Bibb said, he predicted that the state general fund would become so depleted that it could not pay its bills.
This graph indicates the percentage of the general fund expenditures made by the Board of Regents and its institutions during fiscal years 1966 to 1983. The 1984 figure was the amount approved by the Kansas Legislature. The data were provided by James Bibb, associate director of business affairs for the University of Kansas.
"It doesn't take great imagination or a sophisticated calculator to figure out that if you spend more than you take in, you'll run out of money." Rubb said.
the result was that it had to borrow money for the first time. The state's financial condition was aggravated, he said, but not caused, by the malaise in the national economy.
On top or added demands on the general fund came a decline in the percentage of that fund that was allocated to the Regents schools. That percentage had never fallen below 20 percent until fiscal year 1981, Bibb said, but it was 18.82 in fiscal year 1983 and is expected to decline further.
THE STATE overestimated its revenues, and
"If that had been allocated to higher education, we do not believe that we would have had a problem."
The difference between 20 percent and 18.82 percent is 1.18 percent, which doesn't sound like much, but out of the state's general fund, estimated at $1.516 billion, that 1.18 percent translates into $17.8 million less for the Regents schools.
THE PROPORTION allocated to higher education from the general fund is under the control of the governor and the Legislature and not affected by external factors such as the national economy, Bibb said. That is why the people who blame the national economy entirely for the problems in Regents schools are mistaken.
The other factor that slowed the expansion of higher education was a change in the way schools were compensated for enrollment fluctuations.
The first budget that Bibb worked on, for fiscal year 1955, included a formula he designed and one that outlasted several governors. Bibb recognized that higher enrollments meant more students, so he chose an arbitrary ratio to regulate Regina's ability to allow them to adjust their budget requests.
At KU, the formula was this: An unclassified position would be financed for every 15 additional full-time equivalent students expected the following fall. Conversely, if enrollment declined or did not meet the expected level, position would be taken away the following fall.
THE SCHOOLS could get more positions if they could justify them, Bibb said, and KU often did just that. For the schools, his guideline became "almost a sacred rule," although it was often deviated from during the legislative process.
The biggest advantage of that formula, Bibb said, was that it allowed the schools to adjust almost immediately to changing enrollments and changing needs.
"We weren't wedded to that formula," he said.
"There were times when we said we were going after quality, and we didn't reduce. But the rule was to use more than one formula with minor adjustments, along that formula."
Schools began to be worried about the formula
in the late 1970s when static or falling enrollments were predicted. A few years of steady enrollment losses, Bibb said, could do a lot of financial damage under that formula.
THE REGENTS began "formula budgeting" with fiscal year 1980, leaving out the direct, explicit link between enrollment and personnel. For stability, adjustments made by the new budget formula would take effect in two years instead of the three shown. A third possibility would be to divide if the cost or savings would be less than 1.5 percent of the school's general-use budget in the previous year.
That way, schools don't stand to lose as much. Unfortunately, Bibb said, they cannot gain as much, either. The result is that the schools are slower to respond to change, especially for students who demand demands that are similar today in areas such as business, engineering and computer science.
short-lived. On one side are the students, who want to get their degrees and enter a growth phase. On the other side are the students.
On the other side are some administrators who say a university's mission does not include responding to such needs or who say their hands are tied by the budget process.
ARCHIE DYKES, currently a member of the Board of Regents and KU's chancellor from 1973 to 1980, said, "During the '70s, more money was to be spent on buying you to come by or that you got it just for the asking."
People in higher education disagree on the value of responding to demand that might be
That money made less painful the internal reallocation that administrators and department chairmen use to shape and reshape the University, said Dykes, who is chief executive of the University's College Companies in Topeka. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, one could simply pay Paul more.
"It's easier to reallocate if the sum total of what you have is growing." Dykes said. "Now you have a very different environment. The University leadership doesn't have the degree of
flexibility that we had when the University was growing "
SOME OF THE GROWTH, especially in graduate degree programs, may have been premature.
"I think it is extra important that colleges and universities be committed to excellence in undergraduate education," Dykes said. "The teachers should teach in graduate programs make people make wise decisions to offer graduate programs when they're really not ready to offer them."
To Argersinger, the expansion of graduate programs nationwide in the 1960s and 1970s was part of a cycle of the nation's commitment to research.
"ALL TOO often," Argersinger said, the political system has really allowed and even enabled him to win.
The United States had been shocked from complicacy by Sputnik and thrown into the race to the moon. Suddenly, more federal money was available for research and even for buildings, such as hotels Hall. The politics of nuclear science were also available for all kinds of human-oriented research.
"I believe we have in this institution, and probably every other in the country, more graduate programs than there's really a need for."
Robert Cobb, KU executive vice chancellor,
said, "In retrospect, the development of gradual programs probably ran ahead of our faith that the funding would be available."
Argersinger said, "Everyone knew intellectually that it might not always be the same. But we're talking about human beings. Some of these things the University went into with a firm commitment to keep funded. In other cases, the University went into them with the intent to work hard to keep the program, but not what you'd call a firm commitment to secure resources.
THE UNIVERSITY'S commitments and intentions will be tested by the Regents program review process, which encourages the schools to recruit mergers and cuts before the Regents make them.
Argersinger is convinced, however, that the effects of the review process will not be felt in most areas for at least five years, so long as involved 'tend to be humane and respect tenure'.
Instead of letting many professors go, he said, the result will be that faculty positions vacated by retirement, mobility or death will be filled. Even today those positions are often left empty.
"In the long run, the results of what's going on now will diminish expenditures by the Legislature," Argersinger said. "The part of this that we have is our institutions don't further expand their activities."
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The Kansas Public Service Company is now offering a new Winter Operating Plan for the cold weather period. The Cold Weather Period shall run from November 15 through March 23.
A. To meet the good faith test and qualify for the benefits of the Winter Operating Plan, the customer shall:
1. Inform Kansas Public Service Co. of the customer's inability to pay the bill in full, and
2. Give sufficient information to allow Kansas Public Service to make a payment agreement, and
3. Make an initial payment of the greater of 25% or $45 of the bill for consumption during the most recent billing period plus 1/12 of the arrears, and
4. Apply for federal, state, local or other funds for which the customer is eligible, and
5. a. Enter a Level Payment Plan for current and future consumption with arrears paid in equal installments over 12 months.
b. Any assistance received by the customer from Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) would first be deducted from the total amount in arrears.
c. To qualify for the Level Payment Plan a customer must have a 12 month lease or rental commitment in their present location, or own their home.
d. In the event a customer fails to meet their payment plan obligation, gas service could be discontinued with sufficient notice.
6. Not illegally divert utility service, and
7. Not default on a payment plan
b. The Kansas Public Service Co. shall
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2. Attempt a telephone contact with the customer prior to disconnection of service.
3. Not terminate any customer if the temperature is projected to fall below 32° in the following 24 hour period.
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