The passage of Referendum C helps Colorado emerge from its fiscal woes, but it’s not enough to restore the state’s full financial health. Maintaining high-quality services will require some major restructuring. Though it would be a political flameout, we should nonetheless look hard at reorganizing and downsizing Colorado’s higher education system.
Over the years, we’ve moved in the wrong direction in higher education. Rather than consolidating the governance of our colleges and universities, thereby reducing costs and overlapping programs, we have instead created a host of stand-alone institutions which may prove to be economically not viable.
There isn’t enough state funding to support all our schools adequately. Rising tuition won’t make up for the lack of state support. Colorado is moving all too rapidly toward so de-funding higher education that we’ll no longer have public colleges and universities. That is a catastrophe for our kids, our businesses, for all of us.
So, at the risk of infuriating my fellow Coloradans, I’m suggesting we rethink how we manage higher education in the state, restructuring management and programs. This is the role of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, but it can’t do enough in this weak financial and politically charged environment.
There are many ways to restructure. We could have a three-tiered system, with the University of Colorado continuing under its constitutional Board of Regents as our research university, providing the intellectual capital and highly educated professionals we need to thrive. The Colorado School of Mines, now only marginally financially viable, would be merged into the University of Colorado.
The second tier would be Colorado State University, bringing under its umbrella the University of Northern Colorado and the now separately governed four-year colleges scattered around the state. This system would educate most of Colorado’s professionals and businesspeople. Finally, there would be the community college system, providing technical and basic academic education as well as specialized training for businesses. Each system would have its own governing board, a major reduction in staffing and costs from the current multiplicity of boards.
Under this scenario, we could eliminate the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and focus each system’s board on the programs it can best deliver, eliminating duplication.
Another plan would be to turn the Board of Regents into a “super board,” governing all higher education institutions in the state. Given the meager resources available to higher education, this board – or any set of boards – should take a hard look at closing schools with small enrollments, severely reducing duplication of degrees and course offerings, and consolidating such major schools as business, engineering, education and health care into one campus.
A business-savvy CU administrator suggested a third alternative, given Colorado’s fiscal constraints. Create a Rocky Mountain regional university, with each participating state taking responsibility for key programs. For example, CU might house the medical school; Wyoming, the business school; Utah, the law school; and New Mexico, the engineering school.
Any of these options would muster a huge outcry from communities whose schools, their economic and cultural centers, might be closed and from students who can’t afford to live away from home while attending college. And that is no small matter. But, under the current funding limitations, we cannot sustain the higher education system we have built. To try to do so will simply ensure mediocrity, higher tuition and, ultimately, economic stagnation.
Our higher education system educates workers for a “knowledge” society, retrains people with outdated skills, and provides the basic research that stimulates business development and innovation. If Colorado isn’t going to adequately fund all the higher education we currently offer, we must reduce its infrastructure costs so we can put that money into ensuring excellence in what we are willing to provide.
To continue as we are is to undercut our future. It’s time for Coloradans and our elected officials to either put our money where our hopes are or to bite the education bullet and match what we offer to what we want to pay.
Gail Schoettler is a former U.S. ambassador, Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer, Democratic nominee for governor and Douglas County school board member.
