Chancellor predicts tiered tuition plan

February 11, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

CSUN hears how cuts could affect some more than others

Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Klaich addressed CSUN on Monday explaining the effects of implementing differential tuition to what he said are the most likely departments to be eliminated at UNLV.

Klaich said his first suggestion to the Board of Regents was to revise the process of funding reform to ensure that finding cuts and subsequent tuition and fee increases would happen more gradually and affordably.

As NSHE makes plans to meet a demand from the state Interim Finance committee to remove $110 million of higher education funding in 2011, Klaich recommended that we try to come up with a new policy based on a shared responsibility with the state. He emphasized keeping an eye on access and affordability and the importance of a new plan which would make cuts more predictable.

Klaich explained that a likely outcome in coming years is the implamentation of differential tuition: a system that would charge students more per credit to take  high demand, higher-level courses and courses in specialized fields.

“This is a very controversial idea and I think let’s push it forward for discussion,” Klaich said, explaining that such a change is unlikely to occur in this biennium but is likely in the next. “It has to come with student representation. We’ll probably bring it back to talk to you all before we go any further.”

In response to several student representatives’ concerns about the possibility of differential tuition disproportionately affecting their constituencies, Klaich explained that the change would seek to see that students in relatively low-cost majors would not shoulder the financial burden of keeping the most expensive classes in session.

Engineering Senator Tory Jackson asked the chancellor, “Which college do you think would be affected the most by the fee increase?”

He replied, “I’m guessing… but I would say allied health, engineering, business upper division. Those are the ones that have typically been discussed.”

Liberal Arts Senator Diana Washington expressed concern about the idea of charging more from students seeking to enter fields of public service.

“Why nursing?” she asked as an example. “We always need nurses… Engineers? They build our freeways. And nurses take care of our kids and our parents and our grandparents when they’re in the hospital.”

Acknowledging Washington’s concern as a possible problem, Klaich explained that he sees the discussion of differential tuition as a matter of transparency.

“We’re really not being very transparent in what your cost of education is,” he said, explaining that the amount a given student pays is not necessarily equal to the cost of his or her education. “They might be paying more than that value to support students in more expensive majors, or less if they are in a costly field.”

Presenting what he sees as a realistic picture of the cuts coming toward Nevada higher education institutions, the chancellor said there will certainly be cuts to UNLV and its fellow state schools.

“This is not Dan rolling over,” he said. “This is not Dan defending. This is going to happen. It’s reality. We are $900 million short in the next ten months. We have a constitutional obligation to balance budget. 52 percent of the budget it education. Education is going to be cut. The question is how deep.”

Klaich lamented what he sees as a lack of public concern about the severity of the budget situation with regard to higher education.

“That ‘s just the reality of what’s going on,” he said, “and it just frustrates the hell out of me… when we become numb to finishing dead last in every category of quality and achievement as if it’s some kind of joke.”

Senate President Victor Barragan asked Klaich which colleges were most likely to be eliminated in such a case. The chancellor said he does not know and would probably not have given the information Monday if he did.

As the Senate moved to asking about possible alternatives to cutting programs, Barragan asked, “Are you looking at cutting the pay of administration, so our staff could be salvaged?”

“I think everything is on the table,” Klaich responded.

Referring to one of the effects of the plans the chancellor presented to the Board of Regents in response to the IFC’s request, some senators asked Klaich to explain the meaning of financial exigency.”

“What financial exigency says is, ‘We don’t have enough money to follow the normal rules,’” he said. “The university is made up of rules… We are likely getting to a point where we need to find dollars to save and we can’t play by all those rules.”

Klaich spoke briefly to CSUN in response to Governor Jim Gibbons’ broad plans  for balancing the state budget.

“I have a tough time with that because when families are around the table what I don’t think is discussed is, ‘Let’s kick Granny to the curb and Jason, this might irrevocably change your life, but you can’t go to college.’”

“I think they’re saying, ‘How can we stay together as a family group?’” he continued. “‘How can we have a better future than we have now?’”

When asked how students can best approach activism against budget cuts, Klaich emphasized the importance of voting.

“I would like to have a registrar sitting on every campus getting every one of you to register,” he said, “and then turn out every single one of you and your family and your cousins and brothers and sister to vote.”

CSUN is hosting voter registration booths on campus throughout the week.

“I believe in respectful discourse,” Klaich said, “so I don’t want you throwing yourself down in front of anyone’s car. You are bright, articulate, engaged people. You are the people who are going to be leading this state and you have to let people know that. If they want their state lead by people other than the bright, articulate, engaged people, then budget cuts are going to do it.”