As Funds Shrink, Universities Must Emphasize Their Value, Says Official and Former Politician

Boston — At a time of diminishing state funds for higher education, there has been much discussion about how colleges can make the case that higher education is a public good deserving of government support, not a private good for which individuals should cover the majority of its cost.

Even before the recession, the percentage of state colleges’ budgets that came from public funds was slipping. As that trend continues, there seems to be a growing consensus among higher-education leaders that the discussion about public vs. private good has to happen, so that public colleges are able to provide a quality education at an affordable cost.

So how to start? Robert A. Weygand, vice president for administration and finance at the University of Rhode Island, can provide some insight. Before coming to the university, Mr. Weygand was a state representative, a lieutenant governor, and U.S. representative from Rhode Island.

The major engines of political change, said Mr. Weygand, who was here for the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, are advocacy and publicity. Public colleges need to promote and publicize the work they do for the community and their contributions to economic development. Well-publicized proof that they make a difference to the state, and not just the earning potential of individual graduates, is meaningful to lawmakers, even in tough times.

Making that case is not just the job of the college’s president or lobbyists. Mr. Weygand suggested that deans, faculty members, and others should be talking to legislators, businesses, and local organizations about how important the university is to the economy of the state. And those conversations should be happening year-round, not just in budget season.

“Everyone has to be out talking about the value,” he said. “We need to renew the idea that economic development is based on a quality higher-education system.”

State support is a major issue for the University of Rhode Island, which has seen its appropriations shrink by 27 percent in the last three years. Mr. Weygand expects another 5-percent cut. The university is responding by slowing down hiring, doing some academic restructuring, outsourcing some administrative tasks, and raising the student-faculty ratio.

“If you really want economic development in your state, don’t disinvest in the very engine that drives that economic development,” he said. —Kathryn Masterson