Higher education in Nevada ranks lowest in nation

October 4, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

Chronicle of Higher Education says NSHE faces worst state funding hole

Higher education faces greater challenges in Nevada than in any other state in the U.S., says the 2010-11 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The state faces the deepest budget hole in the nation when it comes to education funding and the third-largest drop in state funding in that area.

The Nevada System of Higher Education saw a 19.6 percent reduction in state money last year.

Nevada high schools are expected to turn out 28 percent more graduates this year than last — the fastest gain in the country — but high school graduation rates are still at the bottom of the charts.

“Nevada students are less likely to graduate from high school than any other state in the country,” David Longanecker, president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, told the press.

“If they do graduate, they are less likely to go to college, and if they go to college, less likely to earn their diplomas.”

Longanecker said that the problem does not lie with NSHE leadership.

He said higher education leaders in Nevada are limited in a state where residents refuse to raise taxes to keep the education system afloat.

Longanecker also said Nevada’s tax code has failed to keep pace with the state’s rapid population growth, and the gaming and tourism sector that used to carry the weight of funding almost everything in the formerly small state is now unable to cope.

Plus, he said, the existing tax structure in Nevada disadvantages the working poor, and with Nevada facing some of the worst recession conditions, higher taxes might not be a reasonable prospect.

“Put all these things together and it is very difficult to see a progressive way out of the dilemmas you face,” Longanecker said.

“But unless you find a way to do that, you will be relegated to the bottom of the heap in the United States for a long time to come.”

But some think money cannot make Nevada schools rise because history has shown what they see as a miscarriage of funding.

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, UNLV increased spending by 140 percent from 1993 to 2007 and increased tuition by 56 percent during that time.

The University of Nevada, Reno hiked tuition by 90 percent and upped spending by 69 percent.

Nevada Policy Research Institute education policy analyst Patrick Gibbons said the two schools have been spending on administrators and amenities rather than on students and research.

According to the Goldwater Institute, UNLV increased its ratio of high-paid administrators to students by 90 percent from 1993 to 2007 but cut its staff of instructors by 6.6 percent.

At UNR, the administrator-student ratio jumped 18 percent during that time, and its number of instructors increased by nine percent.

NSHE Chancellor Dan Klaich said these statistics place both UNLV and UNR below the national average.

UNLV has 11.7 full-time employees per 100 students and UNR has 17 per 100. Colleges have 24.3 full-time employees per 100 students on average, nationally.

According to that metric, Klaich claims UNLV ranks as the 19th leanest institution and UNR the 28th leanest, of the 198 survey schools.

But Gibbons argues that these numbers are skewed by the omission of a category for administrators called “highly paid, non-educators.”