By John Staed
Friday, December 19, 2008

When South Carolina Budget and Control Board announced a budget reduction of 7 percent this month, it brought to $38 million the reductions to Clemson University’s state appropriation this year.

At Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, a nearly 10 percent enrollment increase helped offset $1.6 million in state money that is not coming.

And at the University of South Carolina system, cuts equaled $52 million, prompting a campus-wide belt-tightening.

Even schools that serve those in kindergarten through 12th grade, which weren’t savaged in total budget cuts, the discussion was about protecting teachers and classroom instruction first, the center of education in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Tri-County Tech President Ronnie Booth said the school may need to adopt a different model, shedding programs that don’t pay their way and focusing more on the core mission of the school. A Tri-County program that provides college classes in high schools is now free, but may require fees in the future, he suggested.

But will budget cuts — and more are expected next year — change the way a Clemson, a Tri-County or a South Carolina do business? Will colleges and other state agencies adopt, as Booth intimates, a leaner, businesslike model that eliminates programs and extras that have been added over the years?

William T. Moore, vice president for planning at USC, provided an example of how colleges have changed.

Moore said a friend who graduated from South Carolina in 1969 recently visited his niece, a freshman, at South Carolina during parents’ weekend.

“He was absolutely amazed at how much better services are,” Moore said.

To anyone who attended college in the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s, it’s not your father’s campus anymore.

But Moore said budget cuts will force colleges “to revisit all those services and cut back” non-essential ones.

Moore and Clemson President James Barker argue that colleges already are on a business model but also must stay true to the mission of education and research. The revenue side must support those programs that make a college a college, they said.

“USC has been on a business model for some time,” Moore said. “What’s happening though is that the ability of certain programs to sustain themselves in this environment is now in question.”

At colleges, as with most businesses these days, “fewer people have to do more work,” he said.

Barker points out that as states have cut appropriations to colleges, colleges have had to turn to students and parents in part to make up the costs.

“As state support has gone down, tuition has gone up,” Barker said. “There’s a direct link between the two.”

Neither Barker nor Moore plan for any mid-year tuition increases, but what will happen next fall is uncertain.

Looking at college budgets and services from an economic standpoint, Moore argues that the schools’ product — education — is something that is in demand.

Indeed, Clemson’s Barker reported Wednesday that the university has received more undergraduate and graduate applications than the previous year.

“People are still demanding higher education,” Moore said. “They are still applying to get a degree.”

Barker said a college could achieve better efficiencies, but at a cost to the students.

“I would use as an example, I could get efficiencies with an English teacher by teaching in Death Valley (the school’s football stadium), but it’s not a good way to learn,” Barker said. “We are striving for smaller class sizes.”

In the economic model, the educated student is the product. But in the real world, Moore said, it’s something larger.

“What we really are producing is a better world, which is why society is subsidizing education,” Moore said.

“You have to afford some inefficiencies in a universities,” Barker said.

Barker worries that the public is not as supportive of higher education as it once was. From the 1970s to today, Clemson receives 40 percent fewer state tax dollars and “I would expect that trend to continue,” Barker said.

“People were seeing public education as a public good, but now see it more as a private good,” he said. “I would argue that is short-sighted.”

Although most state colleges have managed to avoid layoffs, come February or March that could be a more difficult issue.

Clemson has told its part-time faculty members that they may not be rehired at the end of the school year in June. South Carolina officials have said tenure-track positions at that school are protected, but salary increases are unlikely. The school also indicated that 30 tenure positions will not be filled short-term, and 100 adjunct professors will not be hired to teach in the spring. Clemson ordered a mandatory five-day unpaid furlough for its 4,000 employees; South Carolina has not.

Moore said legislators and budget officials expect state revenues to show a drop again after what could be a disappointing Christmas retail season.

“The numbers (in cuts) could be pretty high,” Moore said. “We’ve been told by some in the General Assembly it could be another 15 percent next year. It’s getting to the point where we have to take a close look at the services we offer.”