In the fall of 1981, I was a new assistant professor at what was then Mankato State University. At the first university convocation, President Margaret Preska told the faculty that the university would have to share in the state’s budget problems that year. “We’ll all have to tighten our belts,” she announced. Over the next quarter-century, we have heard other university presidents come before the faculty and announce, “We’ll all have to tighten our belts.” Even in better economic times, we have never heard a president say, “OK. You can let that belt out a notch.”
Now we are in what most economists and government officials are calling the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I visited the Capitol in St. Paul last week with other faculty members of the state universities’ Inter Faculty Organization, and we heard legislator after legislator — Democrat and Republican alike — say, “We’ve never seen anything like this [economic situation]!”
They confirmed what we already knew — higher education and the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities system are going to have to punch new notches in the belt.
The truth is that Minnesota’s colleges and universities have always been a target for cuts during hard economic times. Why? Simply because public higher education is one of the few functions of state government that has a revenue stream separate from taxes — student tuition. The state’s original promise to students and their parents was that tuition would pay for about one-third of their costs at the state colleges and universities while the state would cover the other two-thirds.
Over time that promise has been forgotten, and students now pay nearly 50 percent of their costs through tuition. Even while tuition was rising, though, the state university faculty saw their own income standings slip year by year in comparison to other states. MnSCU and the IFO temporarily halted that decline with our last faculty contract settlement, due to expire this summer. But in the last six months, everything has changed.
The IFO knows that the state faces a huge challenge. Even if every state office and service, including all the prisons, were shut down, that still would not solve the current deficit dilemma, which is likely to get even worse. On our visit to St. Paul, those legislators — Democrat and Republican alike — also asked us this: “What sacrifices are you faculty willing to make to help us solve this problem?”
Now, we have answered them. Last week, the IFO and MnSCU administration agreed to freeze our current contract — no regular pay step increases for the next two years. The students have answered as well, with the state and Mankato student governments supporting a modest increase in tuition. The administration at Minnesota State University is also playing its part, currently considering major budget cuts and changes with the input of everyone on campus. Our common goals are to “preserve instruction” and “preserve quality education.”
Now it is time for the Legislature and the governor to do their part. They know that higher education is a vital part of the solution to the current budget mess. They know that the state universities and colleges provide graduates who will create new jobs and fill them with skilled workers. The Legislature and the governor need to show their own commitment to preserving instruction and quality education and to stop using higher education as a source of funds.
Please contact your legislators and Gov. Pawlenty and urge them to “Preserve instruction, preserve quality!” Thank you for your support!
Don Larsson is president of the Minnesota State University Faculty Association (IFO)
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