HD56 - Change and Improvement in Higher Education

  • Published: 1993
  • Author: State Council of Higher Education for Virginia
  • Enabling Authority: Appropriation Act - Item 151 (Regular Session, 1992)

Executive Summary:
This report is the second major document to be issued by the leadership of Virginia higher education since the Commission on the University of the 21st Century published "The Case for Change" in 1989. The first was presented to the Governor and the General Assembly by the presidents of the senior colleges and universities, the chancellor of the Virginia Community College System, and the director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. In July 1991, it was endorsed by the Council of Higher Education and supported by the Secretary of Education.

The two reports and "The Case for Change" are all of a piece. The Commission on the University of the 21st Century offered Virginians a vision of the role higher education would play in the rapidly changing world of which we are a part and what will have to happen within our colleges and universities to prepare themselves for roles of leadership in the early years of the new century.

The July 1991 paper came in the midst of a historically significant downturn in the Virginia economy. Colleges and universities, buffeted by unprecedented budget cuts that eventually totaled $413 million, were struggling to adapt to changes thrust upon them by unwelcome necessity.

The paper reviewed what had happened and where Virginia higher education ranked among the states. It then called for additional funding, urging Virginia's elected leaders to continue their long-standing commitment to competitive faculty salaries, adequate operating budgets, and new buildings as enrollments grew. Finally, it pledged substantial restructuring of higher education: leaner, less bureaucratic, effective, and responsive.

One part of the paper's vision was realized when, in November 1992, the people of Virginia approved a General Obligation Bond issue that will provide $472 million for new building construction and renovation for colleges and universities. The Governor and the General Assembly had authorized the referendum during the 1992 session with strong bipartisan support.

In 1992, the Governor and the General Assembly, lacking sufficient tax revenues to meet all state needs and obligations, authorized large increases in tuition and fees to maintain the colleges and universities. They appropriated unprecedented increases in financial aid to help needy students who are not able to pay the higher tuition.

This paper, which responds to direction included in the 1992 Appropriation Act, offers suggestions about how Virginia colleges and universities can continue the progress outlined in previous reports and change their resource allocations to extend the reach of teaching faculty: to reach more students with modest staffing increases. If more money is available, Virginia's colleges and universities can do even more and do it better and more easily. On the other hand, scarcity and judicious state incentives can combine to elicit new and creative approaches: in this instance, creative approaches to the work of teaching, research, and service that is the mission of higher education.

Everything said in the report of the Commission on the University of the 21st Century remains valid. This is a report, the Commission wrote, "for good times or lean." Everything said in the president's July 1991 paper remains valid. More state funds for higher education are desperately needed for quality to remain high and tuition increases to abate. "In the long run, "the Commission said, "a state can aspire to excellent education only if it is willing to pay for it."

Indeed, the Council's preliminary estimate is that the state's colleges and universities will need more than $200 million in additional state funds in 1994-96 to return faculty salaries to the 60th percentile nationally and to provide student aid, equipment and technology, library materials, new positions for enrollment growth, new entities already begun to serve additional students, and adequate maintenance of buildings and campuses.

The proposals in this new report build upon what has gone before. The report continues a conversation begun in 1989 about the importance of higher education among the services provided by state government. The change and improvement we advocate stands by itself, regardless of economic conditions. Much has been done during the three years since "The Case for Change" proposed an agenda for higher education. But more remains to be done, and the difficult times in which we issue this preliminary report simply add another dimension to the urgency of getting on with the work.