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. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . that I'm excited about. New Mexico lawmakers address the financial woes of the state's largest university. I don't see how there's going to be
a notable difference in the funding of higher education in the future than there has been in the past unless there's a very substantial infusion of new money through a tax increase. And Demetrium Martinez comments on equal access to education. We do not suffer so much from small budgets as from an impoverished vision of the role of higher education in a democracy. Good evening, I'm Neil Boggs at week 7. It started as a protest by students over a tuition increase. But before it was over, the agenda had been broadened. For two weeks, a group of students camped out in the offices of Gerald May,
president of the University of New Mexico, in an effort to be heard on the question of a tuition increase by the Board of Regents. They ultimately were heard, but where they heated are topic tonight. The students have won some input and future decisions by the Regents and the promise of more financial aid for those most in need. But the tuition increase itself still stands. Decisions made by the Board of Regents Thursday and a meeting that they hope will bring a quiet end to the affair. Thank you for the tax increase. Thank you for your participation. Everybody has been focusing on the revenue side.
And part of this equation revolves around the cost side. And this institution and going forward is going to have a very difficult time with a self-examination in terms of what this institution is doing today and what do we expect of this institution going forward? At times, yesterday's five-hour meeting the Regents had exceeded two most of the student demands. All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. The major exception is the tuition increase that triggered the protest. Even so, student body president Jim Spear felt they'd been a victory. There was two and a half demands met. The first demand was that the budgetary process students now have access to the budgetary process. The second demand is that students now have ability to address if economically disadvantaged students are being shut
out of education. And the half is that there has been some money set aside in order to protect those students that are going to be directly affected by the $100 increase. But the real issue for me has been is the opening of the process to students and actually assessing the financial aid needs of students. And those I think are the major accomplishments that I'm excited about. I wish the tuition would have gone better. And I'm looking now to possibly getting in and making sure that this doesn't happen next year, that these student concerns are brought up so that we don't have another $100 increase next year. Despite the Board of Regents' concessions on some issues, the tuition increase remains a sticking point to some students. And many who were there yesterday as observers were plainly unhappy about. Here to discuss these and other questions arising from the student challenge to the region's actions are the President
of the U.N. Board of Regents, Robert Sanchez, Pauline Turner, a U.N. Professor and member of the Faculty Senate, and from the University's Student Senate, Antonio Anaya. Thank you for being here. And first question for Mr. Anaya. Is it over now, are the yesterday's concessions by the Board of Regents acceptable to the students, or is the issue of a rollback in the tuition increase still alive? I think yesterday the Regents spoke on tuition, I think at least $89.90, the issue of tuition is settled. However, there is a tremendous organization that was formed over the past two and a half weeks that of students and faculty and staff that will continue to address these issues of access to education. New Mexico is one of the poorer states in the nation, and we're soon going to become a minority majority state. So these are bigger issues than just the tuition increase, and we're going to continue fighting those issues. Mr. Sanchez from the Regents' standpoint, where does it stand, is the issue now closed? Certainly for the upcoming year, the tuition issue has been closed from the Board's perspective, but as Mr. Anaya has indicated
and I concur that the process has now been opened and the dialogue for the various constituents here at the University Campus to participate on a much broader basis has just begun. And certainly as a member of the Board, I find that is a great opportunity for this institution to garner a greater understanding of not only the economic impacts of tuition and other related financial matters, but to develop a form where other issues that are facing this institution can now be brought to and the general community and discuss prior to the Board of Regents' acting, and I think that will allow us to make better decisions and more informed decisions as time goes on. Mr. Turner, the faculty got to pay increase, and some have said that the students expense what effect will have if any on faculty's student relations? Well, I think that's an interesting question, Neil. I, too, like Antonio, believe that for those of us who work together to prepare these proposals for the Board of Regents, that it was a very rewarding experience.
I feel much closer to the students than I did before, and I think they feel much closer to the faculty than they did before. And obviously our position during this whole process was that we should not jeopardize the 5% increase and the 0.5% increase from market adjustment for faculty, because, I mean, everybody knows students, Regents and faculty alike, that that is insufficient in itself. I think the issue of faculty salaries being tied to tuition increases was unfortunate, and I do think that it clearly had the potential for creating adversarial relationships between students and faculty. There are some people like myself who were extremely concerned about this issue and have said, you know, if tuition is raised because of faculty salaries, then we'll give it back in the terms of scholarships to students. There are other faculty who do not feel that way, however. I mean, some faculty are concerned primarily about their
experiences, and rightly so. So I think, I really think that overall it's not going to create adversarial relationships. I think that faculty feel comfortable in knowing that students support the fact that they need increases as well. Mr. and I, $100 more a year doesn't sound like much, perhaps, not to some people. Other schools in the state have imposed even higher increases. It was lower here, yet a large protest. Can you tell us about that? I think UNM, there are a lot of unique aspects of UNM that which probably led to our decision to protest. Number one is the fact that the average age of the student at UNM is 27. That means that the large number of our students are the non-traditional students who are taking classes, part-time, who have families, and are probably a little economically strapped more so than the students at other institutions. There are several things UNM that makes UNM unique, and I think that that in part led to it, but at UNM we have experienced tremendous increases over the past few years, and I don't know how that
compares to other institutions. Mr. Sanchez, one of the points to which the region's agreed was to make a study of the economic impact that any future tuition increases would have, particularly on lower-income students, but isn't that something that the region should have considered before this tuition increase was decided on? Or clearly, I think this economic impact study should have occurred years and years ago. Discussions have been held with administration in terms of the impact of increasing tuition particularly to that segment of the student body. I think that this particular process has helped to facilitate and crystallize this concept into a formal setting, and I think that's an extremely beneficial development as a result of the events of the last two weeks. And I think that every member on the board is very supportive of this. Again, it goes back the more information that we can have, and we can garner from the various segments of the community, the better decisions we can make. Mr. Turner, the student seemed to have played a strong
leadership role throughout this dispute, the faculty did give them support. My question, did the regions put the faculty in a middle by pegging a pay increase to a boost in tuition? Well, yes, I think there was fairly strong feeling that that was the case. And again, I think that's kind of an unfortunate position to be in. But generally, I think that the faculty felt that students should have an opportunity to have alternative proposals considered. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. I mean, the regions did cooperate with that and did listen to the student's proposals. And I don't think really that any long-term damage has been done. Please. It was never the intention of the board to pit one segment of the community against the other. I think that the conception or misconception that the increased tuition was tied directly to faculty salaries is not true. Clearly, the additional funds that the increase in tuition represents is needed by this
university. In fact, we can make quite a severe case that the additional funds far beyond that are necessary for this institution not only to continue the status quo here but to be able to move forward. And it's a responsibility for us to look at revenue, at the revenue side of this equation as long as well as our responsibility to look at the cost side. And as I said earlier in the discussions last week that the real challenges that this institution faces is to deal with the next side of the equation. And I think that's going to be a very interesting dialogue that's going to be occurring certainly for the coming year and hopefully for the years thereafter. That the more people understand the dynamics of the financial structure of this institution, the better decisions will be made. Mr. Knight, we don't have about ten seconds. I'd like to follow up briefly when the students did formulate their alternative 3.9% tuition policy or plan. Faculty salary, faculty and staff salaries were the number one part as far
as maintaining their level. I wish we could continue but we must move on to another aspect of this. Thank you very much Robert Sanchez, President of the UNM Board of Regents, Antonio and I of the Student Senate, and Pauline Turner of the Faculty Senate. In the wake of the storm of student protest over UNM's $100 year tuition increase, many state legislators are wondering what all the fuhrer is about. Producer Matthew Snowden examines that aspect of the story. Last fall, University of New Mexico officials went to the state commission on higher education, asking for a 9% salary increase for faculty and staff. The commission, however, recommended to the legislature a salary hike of about 5.5% but that would have required a tax increase and since the governor threatened to veto any legislation requiring a tax increase, legislators instead opted for a 3.5% raise and salary. That pay increase came with the understanding that
University statewide would increase tuition to compensate for the lack of state funding. Well, I guess the message we're sending is that within the limited resources available and those being defined by the absence of a tax increase, we're willing to try to increase the salaries at the university about at the same rate as we're able to increase the salaries in the other areas of public employment. That probably is not going to permit us to catch up with the other institutions that are competitive, that are trying to hire our faculty away. It may be enough to prevent us from falling much further behind than we are now. UNM's problems go far beyond faculty staff salary hikes and tuition increases. According to the UNM Planning and Policy Department and the State Commission on Higher Education, UNM has some great obstacles to overcome. For instance,
state appropriations for UNM's instruction budget per individual student are on the whole about 75% of those same funds appropriated to other comprehensive state universities in the region. Average faculty salaries at UNM are about 10% below those of other universities in the region are about 16% below the national average and continue to fall behind. While New Mexico is ranked 44th in the U.S. in per capita income, UNM's tuition is less expensive than other institutions in the region is ranked 42nd in the nation and comprises a lower percentage of total budget than many universities. And in the last five years, UNM's tuition has increased 65% while faculty salaries have increased only 19%. I'm frankly getting tired of the rhetoric. I think yes, New Mexicans relatively speaking spend a lot on higher education. One issue, another issue, UNM is clearly underfunded. We need to look at why given they
spend so much UNM is relatively underfunded. And I think the options there we can look at are, for example, how many institutions of higher education New Mexico has per capita in the state. It might be that if the people of this state really want quality higher education, they're going to have to reduce the number of higher educational institutions. An awful alternative is they can increase public funding to a point at which we can possibly become an excellent university by spending more money on libraries and salaries and so on. Or let's admit the people of this state want to keep the number of higher educational institutions they have. They don't want to pay more money. And we all say, okay, the rhetoric about excellence is just rhetoric. It's just garbage. We will be mediocre. It's the best we can do with the money we've got. While the debate over funding continues, some of UNM's faculty have voted with their feet, leaving the university in a steady place for more than five years running. Some faculty contend that until UNM is infused with a big boost in state funds and the
inevitable increases in tuition, the exodus will continue. Yet they argue that if the state continues to rely on tuition increases to fund faculty pay raises, the state of New Mexico may find its students priced out of the opportunity for a higher education. To continue our discussion, we have a member of the legislature, Senator Victor Marshall, a republican of Brent Leo County, and Professor Marion Cottrell, Vice President of the UNM Faculty Senate. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. There are two viewpoints which are at odds. On the road, tuition should play at university funding. Senator Marshall, you feel, I believe, tuition increases are not only reasonable but inevitable. Others, however, have a different position of feeling that appropriations, even if it means higher taxes, should carry that load. Would you outline your own position, the reasons for it? Well, it's not really my position. It's not my opinion. It's really the facts because to understand the situation, you have to
step back a little bit. New Mexico is either 44th or 46th in per capita income or a poor state. But in terms of the regulations that we, and I mean we in the legislature, make for higher education, we rank 15th in the country. In terms of the proportion of our tax revenues that we devote to higher education, we rank 4th in the entire country. So it is simply not factual to say that the legislature does not support higher education. We support higher education more than 46 other states compared to their income. But when you look on the other side of the equation, at the tuition side, New Mexico ranks 38th when adjusted for per capita income in tuition levels. In other words, even if you take into account the fact that our population is poor, even after you adjust for that, we only rank 38th in tuition levels. In fact, the students are, unfortunately, for them, going to have to play catch up if this is going to come into balance.
I'd like to come back to some of those points later. I'd like to now, though, to Professor Cutrell, your vice president of the faculty Senate, you've seen a steady exodus of instructors because of low pay. Where does the faculty stand on the overall question of financing this university, Senator Marshall's approach, or the alternate view? Well, I think the faculty stand parts of them on each side. Many of them support the idea of higher tuition for the students. Many of the faculty, including myself, feel that it is more of a public responsibility, that the benefits of financing quality higher education, making our students competitive and national markets, not just regional markets, that that is an appropriate function of local government, of state government. That doesn't mean that we don't think students ought to pay some tuition. One of the questions, one of the concerns, in a state like New Mexico, always is even the gross figures of
standing and per capita income, and where we are in terms of paying. New Mexico has a second highest percentage of PhDs per population of any state in the United States, ranking right behind Maryland. These are concentrated in Albuquerque, Santa Los Alamos, Almagordo, and two or three other cities. If you adjusted the New Mexico income for the rest of New Mexico, it took a look really at the non-urban areas. We may find that we're not even 44th and that many of these figures of what it would cost a student to come to you at M make it so formidable they would never come. And I say this part of my experience. I'm from one of the smaller school districts, one of the poorest counties originally in the state of New Mexico. Had tuition 40 years ago, comparatively, been what it is today, I'm not sure I would be able to university. Senator Marshall, the governor's position is that taxpayers are generous to higher education. In fact, an article by him that was published in
the UNM's Lobo newspaper just this week made that assertion. Yet in lieu of a tax increase by the legislature, we see a tuition increase by the Board of Regents, can you reconcile that? Absolutely. With the facts that I just told you, we rank fourth in the percentage of revenues, tax revenues that we devote to higher education, and yet our tuition levels when adjusted relative to incomes are only 38. The fact is we are already generous, and that's why there really isn't. I hate to throw cold water on this discussion, but there's nothing like looking at a budget of the state and of the university to realize that the state does not have significant additional resources to devote to higher education. Well, might that generosity be too widely dispersed? It's been pointed out that New Mexico, for example, has twice as many universities as Arizona. It has three. We have six. We have 18 community colleges. Could that be too many with the state, with our limited resources?
I think it is. There's no question about that. I agree completely with what Professor Robuck said. We have too many college campuses, as you say, 24 college campuses, and what that results in is the dilution of the few resources we do have, and unfortunately it's very true. UNM is the flagship university, at least supposedly, and yet it has indeed been shorted because the funds have been siphoned off to these other campuses. Is there any prospect realistically that will ever scale down the number of universities, fewer and better? Well, at least you can identify a solution, and that is, either reducing the number of campuses or requiring greater local support for what are local rather than state campuses, basically. But I tell you, politically, campuses have become just like military bases on the Federal Reserve. Is that a port barrel? Well, it is, but it's jobs to the people in the communities. You can be sure that in virtually every community that has one, the biggest employers in the public school system,
and the next biggest employer will be the local college campus. So the representatives and senators fight tooth and nail to preserve those campuses. As an educator, Professor Cottrell, do you feel that sometimes the university system then is being used as a source of jobs, or too much so? Well, I think there's some truth to that, and I certainly concur with Senator Marshall on the number of campuses and universities that we have with the state, and that we have to support. That does dilute our resources. On the other hand, I take that, regardless of that, that in the flagship institution he talked about, the one where the New Mexican, who is seeking an education that makes him or her nationally competitive, we have got to do more. Now, there are ways of doing it, and I should add that, despite the fact I would fault the legislature for some degree of funding, I also would fault the university administration and the university faculty for part of our budgeting.
And when you take a look at our budgets, and you see administrative costs increasing over a ten-year period at a rate 50% higher than the actual cost of instruction. Top heavy with generals? I think so. President May, and perhaps the Regents, we disagree with me, but for a faculty standpoint, we're probably being administered too much. We have less than a minute. Tuitioned up 65% in about five years. A comparable increase in the quality of what students are getting, as they come about. I doubt if we've had 65% increase, of course, it's hard to get that. The thing is the quality in a short term. Quality of education is something you develop over a little longer period of time. Is it developing here? I think it is developing if we can hold our middle ranked faculty and our new faculty. We have always lost our senior faculty. It is a faulty economy. We bring them in while they're learning to teach, while they're learning to do research. We lose them nationally to other schools once they become... I've heard it too late into a baseball farm club.
That's right. We train them. We spend the money on that, and then we let them go elsewhere when they are really polished professionals. Thank you. Professor Marion Cutrell, vice president of the UNM Faculty Senate and Senator Victor Marshall of Burnley Old County. Thank you for being with us. What's all this fuss over a tuition hike anyway? The issue may be broader than we think. Tonight's guest commentator goes into another aspect of the dwindling tax dollars for higher education. Here is Demetria Martinez. Some New Mexicans have expressed dismay that UNM students would protest a tuition hike of $100. A paternalistic administration tried to explain that tuition hikes are a way of life, something to grin and bear for the good of the university. These voices of reason have offered nothing in the way of reflection or historical insight. The embattled tuition hike is much more than a budgetary issue,
rather it goes to the heart of how we view education. We do not suffer so much from small budgets as from an impoverished view of the role of higher education in a democracy. Education is a sacred function that keeps a democracy sound, but one would not have known this watching Ronald Reagan. The former president, Ms. Shetty in hand, slashed away at programs that could have helped students obtain financial backing needed to attend college. Yet that same president thought nothing of increasing the size and scope of military aid to countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. Today we send $43,000 a minute to El Salvador while denying qualified young people access to universities. Ronald Reagan did much in the name of national security in the name of keeping democracy safe. He sent a protracted message to the nation that militarism in tiny countries, not education, is what makes a nation secure. He appeared to forget that the might of a democracy
is to be found in enlightened minds. In citizens whose talents can build a just and peaceful society. Equality as a principle is fundamental to this nation, but in recent years we have seen too many policies enacted that make higher education more available to the wealthy and less so to the poor or struggling middle class. It behooves us to reflect upon the fact that many of our European allies think of somewhat backwards for not making higher education free to all who qualify. Free higher education ultimately is what students should fight for. If our belief that all are created equal is to be credible both here and abroad, we must translate that belief into access to education based upon justice, not well. We invite your views on that week's end commentaries. Please write us at week's end K&M-E-T-V, 1130 University Boulevard Northeast,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102. Although he doesn't refer to any program specifically Bill Sellers of Albuquerque objects to at weeks end in general, Mr. Sellers writes, In my personal opinion, your show consistently features one-sided stories that pander to the liberal 10-second bite. Mary Job of Cerillo's questions the Roger Morris commentary on conditions at the state penitentiary, regarding educational opportunities or lack of them. Mrs. Job writes, I have seen many of the inmates being taught computer science. I am not a prison activist, but I hate for the public to feel that the prisoners quote wander aimlessly with nothing to do, unquote. Next week, public service company of New Mexico. Where's it going? Where's it taking us? We'll talk to P&M President and Chairman Jerry Geist. I'm Neil Boggs at weeks end. Good evening. Thank you.
