A Republican governor with his sights on the White House proposes slashing higher-education spending by $300-million, sending shock waves across Wisconsin campuses. Meanwhile, a strikingly similar scenario is playing out 1,000 miles to the south, where Louisiana educators are warning that a nearly $400-million proposed cut will lead to campus closures, widespread faculty layoffs, and larger classes.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have a lot in common these days. Both are conservative Republicans who are contemplating runs in the 2016 presidential election while facing projected state-budget deficits, of $2-billion and $1.6-billion, respectively.
And both are proposing similar, some would say crippling, cuts in higher education to help close the gap.
The parallels are troubling, according to an official with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“What we are seeing is the attempted dismantling of the public higher-education systems in both Louisiana and Wisconsin as a direct result of the presidential aspirations of those states’ respective governors,” said Daniel J. Hurley, the group’s associate vice president for government relations and state policy.
While other states have been slowly reinvesting in higher education to make up for sharp cuts during the recession, Mr. Jindal’s and Mr. Walker’s top priorities, Mr. Hurley said, are “sticking to that deer-in-the-headlights, no-new-taxes mantra” to burnish their credentials with their Tea Party supporters.
They’re hardly alone. Raising taxes is an unpopular move, and often a last resort, for most politicians. Republican governors of other states are also proposing steep cuts in higher education: Gov. Douglas A. Ducey of Arizona, to the tune of $75-million, and Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, by $17-million.
A Scapegoat?
But slashing higher education has serious ramifications for state economies, a concern that cuts across party lines. Job-training programs at community colleges prepare workers for burgeoning industries, and universities produce an educated citizenry that makes the state more attractive to business.
“Louisiana has done a good job bringing in business. Now the challenge is, Can we provide the work force to sustain it?” said Robert Travis Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a nonpartisan group based in Baton Rouge.
Mr. Jindal blames the state’s shortfall on the steep decline in oil prices—a trend that has no doubt hit the state hard. But his critics contend he’s using that as a scapegoat after years of overspending on rapidly expanding corporate tax breaks and other priorities. No one on his staff was immediately available to comment for this article.
In Wisconsin, Mr. Walker has said universities could actually be better off under his proposal, which would cut the state’s contributions to public colleges by $300-million over two years and freeze tuition for two years. That’s because it would also free the University of Wisconsin system from key state regulations. The result, Mr. Walker said this month in a written statement, would be “a stronger University of Wisconsin system that is more efficient, more effective, and more accountable to taxpayers.”
The governor’s critics, however, contend that the changes could result in layoffs, larger classes, and fewer course offerings.
Writing on the blog of Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors, Martin Kich, a professor of English at Ohio’s Wright State University, said Mr. Jindal and Mr. Walker were wreaking havoc on colleges while “relentlessly and compulsively” cutting taxes.
“They are doing so,” he wrote, “to establish an ideological purity that will advance their own personal political ambitions by advancing the economic, political, and cultural agendas of the oligarchs who are funding, or whom they hope will fund, their political campaigns.”
An Unsustainable Cycle
The Wisconsin plan is being dissected by state lawmakers. Mr. Jindal will officially release his budget proposal on February 27. It, too, will go to the Legislature, where lawmakers are already looking for ways to cushion the blow to the state’s colleges.
Higher education and health care are predictable targets when times are tough because they’re the two biggest sectors in Louisiana that aren’t constitutionally protected from cuts. Colleges also can make up for some of the lost revenue by raising tuition.
Still, big higher-education cuts are likely to backfire, said Mr. Hurley. “Even the deepest critics of those governors will say these guys are smart,” he said. “I just cannot believe they truly believe that disinvesting so severely in their states’ higher-education systems, and ultimately in their state economic systems, is a smart move.”
Since Mr. Jindal became governor, in 2008, the state has cut higher-education spending by $700-million, dedicating 32 percent to 48 percent less of its general-fund dollars to higher education, according to the Louisiana House of Representatives’ Fiscal Division. (The range reflects the difficulty in comparing 2008 with 2015 because, during that time, the state’s public hospital system was privatized and no longer received state higher-education dollars, while a costly tuition-assistance and scholarship fund was wrapped into the higher-education budget.)
Louisiana’s per-student spending on higher education has dropped more than that of any other state since 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which studies the impact of state and federal budget policies on low- and moderate-income people.
Colleges have responded by nearly doubling tuition, creating headaches not only for students and their families but also for those trying to balance the state’s budget.
That’s because escalating tuition has blown the lid off a program that pays tuition and some fees for state residents who graduate from high school with at least a 2.5 grade-point average and an ACT score of 20. The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS, is expected to cost Louisiana $340-million by the 2017-18 year, but Mr. Jindal has resisted efforts to cap it by raising eligibility standards or limiting the awards.
The result, some policy makers say, is an unsustainable cycle in which the state cuts higher-education budgets, colleges respond by raising tuition, and the state’s payout in the free-tuition program skyrockets.
Among the strategies Mr. Jindal is now considering: charging higher tuition for degrees that are in high demand or are more expensive to offer (possibly with a tax break to families forced to pay the higher tuition); giving tax benefits to businesses that donate to colleges; and increasing some student fees.
What he hasn’t been willing to consider, and what some consider the only way out of the state’s budget mess, is rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks for private industry, including the movie business, that have ballooned while he’s been governor. As he flirts with the idea of running for president (where his candidacy is far less certain than Mr. Walker’s), he clearly wants to maintain his image as a pro-business fiscal conservative and to avoid anything that could be interpreted as a tax increase.
Blow From a Hurricane
The uncertainty has higher-education leaders in Louisiana, as in Wisconsin, on edge. The cuts would be hitting exactly 10 years after Hurricane Katrina nearly dealt a death blow to many of the state’s colleges.
Some have speculated that the cuts in Louisiana could force the closure of up to a half dozen of its two-year colleges at a time when such colleges are being turned to as important economic engines for the nation.
Monty Sullivan, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, addressed that possibility in an email to The Chronicle.
“The numbers are overwhelming,” he wrote, “but it’s important that we recognize that every minute we spend standing around the water cooler talking about which campuses might close is a minute we aren’t focused on looking for efficiencies and revenue sources that will allow us to continue producing the work force our state needs.”
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.