Students rally for more funding
As legislators ate lunch Wednesday in the rotunda of the state Capitol, 500 students from Utah’s nine public colleges and universities and Westminster College gathered on the steps outside with signs and rally cries. Their message: Students are paying attention to the legislative process, and they want the needs of higher education met, said Jess Dalton, president of Associated Students of the University of Utah .
The rally, “High Noon for Higher Ed,” has become an annual tradition for students in Utah’s institutions of higher education.
Preliminary budgeting has left higher education with about $14 million less than the Utah Board of Regents requested, and student leaders hope the student voice will help convince the Legislature this isn’t OK.
Altogether, this year is shaping up to be good for higher education, said Rep. Loraine Pace of District 4, which includes part of Cache Valley.
Much of the nearly $140 million allotted for new buildings has been set aside for campus projects like Utah State University’s new heat plant and the renovations on the Engineering Building, Pace said.
Money was also allotted to buy the Brigham City Extension building, which has been on lease.
This may be the beginning of continued funding to add new buildings and update old ones to keep Utah’s campuses from falling behind progressing technology, Pace said.
“I told them, if we don’t start addressing our building needs, we’re going to be looking at an I-15 in buildings,” Pace said.
Money has also been allotted for a 6 percent salary increase for faculty and staff. This will raise student tuition 1 percent more than the Board of Regents’ initial proposal of 4 percent because 25 percent of all salary increases must be funded by student tuition.
Tuition may rise somewhat more than that. Higher education was given $15.2 million – about $14 million short of what the Board of Regents requested, said Sen. Lyle Hillyard, who represents part of Cache Valley.
The state’s booming economy has given legislators extra money to work with this year, and $40 million of it is still on the table and will be until the Executive Appropriations Committee looks at the proposals from all the different subcommittees in March and makes the final decisions.
Legislators are leaning toward spending the $40 million on a tax cut or setting it aside for a major future influx of students into the public education system, Hillyard said.
Neither investment is prudent, Hillyard said. The tax cut is largely symbolic and would have little real effect on the general public, and though the future is uncertain for public education, higher education is already in need.
“We need to fund higher education now,” he said.
The money has been allocated to fund needs the Higher Education Subcommittee found absolutely critical – including libraries, student loans, financial aid and rising utility costs, among others. Very little money will be left to cover enrollment growth.
If the Legislature decides not to use the $40 million to help higher education, a tuition increase of more than 5 percent is unlikely, Hillyard said.
More likely, he said, is the possibility that the money just won’t come, and schools will have to deal with it.
“But I can’t really see that happening in such a good year,” Hillyard said.
Enrollment growth is heavily weighted in the formula the Board of Regents uses to determine how much money higher education needs, Hillyard said. But funding enrollment growth only maintains the status quo, so any improvements aren’t included in the budget. Improvements end up being funded by the students themselves through tuition increases.
“It gets to be almost a game,” he said. “What we’ve really done over the years is make students pay for more and more of their education.”
Students can take heart that when tuition is raised in the future, the Board of Regents and the Legislature may have to explain why, said 8th District Rep. Carlene Walker.
She is pushing a bill proposed by the Utah Council of Student Body Presidents called “Truth in Tuition,” which would require the Board of Regents to tell the public exactly where tuition dollars are being spent.
“There has been a real climate of accountability in recent years, and somehow higher ed. has escaped that,” Walker said. “It shouldn’t be that way. Everybody has to be accountable to somebody; that’s a basic principle.”
Legislators who spoke at the rally encouraged students to write their representatives. The Associated Students of Utah State University will deliver letters from USU students to the Capitol this morning and serve Aggie Ice Cream to legislators.
“You bring a lot of dignity to this process,” Hillyard told students. “Keep coming.”