Comment on CPE

Graduation's Over and My grades are In...

Now, where did I put that Petrili report?

While I look around, here's an exchange from Friday's Comment on Kentucky. Host Ferrell Wellman welcomed Linda Blackford from the Lexington Herald-Leader and C-J's Frankfort reporter Stephenie Steitzer to discuss CPE and higher education in Kentucky. Here's their take:

Ferrell Wellman: The Council on Postsecondary Education did not give at least five of the state schools, plus the community college and technical school system the tuition hikes they wanted for the 2008-2009 academic year. Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell called it "a mess." Stephanie, when we talk about these tuition cuts, actually what we're talking about are hikes that won't be as great as they would have been. Who took the biggest hit here?

Stephanie Steitzer: Well, the community college system wanted a 13% increase and they were whacked to a 5% increase, so they took the biggest hit. Eastern Kentucky and Kentucky State took a 1% hit from what they wanted, so they went form 8% to 7%. Uof L, UK and Northern Kentucky University got what they wanted...9...and NKU was 9 and some change. And, Western Kentucky was whacked, but they were allowed to increase tuition for...out of state students a little higher to sort of make up
for that.

Wellman: I know I talked to some people from Murray ...last week and they were telling me that while they were getting 6.1% increase in tuition, that some of the faculty and staff actually wanted more than that and that some of the faculty were upset that the ...board hadn't asked for more money... When we're talking about the problems between the tuition requests that came in and what the council actually granted - and they voted this morning - what's this going to mean, long run do you think, in terms of friction between the university presidents and the council itself?

Seitzer: Well, this year was an odd year for the tuition situation. This is the first time since 1997, since CPE's been in existence, ...that the CPE has cut any of the universities' tuition hikes, even back during the early 2000s, when these schools were doing double digit increases. I think a lot of this has to do with Brad Cowgill the
president. He was the interim president. They were going to hire him as president. Governor Beshear stepped in and said, No, I don't think so. It was basically a parting shot on ...Cowgill's part to say they were going to whack tuition. It made him look good, politically speaking, and it made the governor look like he was opposed to keeping tuition down. So, that was one anomaly. You also have the budget
situation with the state. The schools for the first time in a few years haven't gotten nearly what they wanted from the state - a total of a 6% cut in what they were wanting. So this year is a little bit of an anomaly. I think going forward...the governor will be able to have more of a role in who the next president will be at CPE -that search is under way now - and revisit what the commitment is to higher education and what we want to do, and whether the goals we set in 1997 are realistic, and whether the state is ready to pony up some of the cash to meet some of these goals.

Wellman: What this means, I guess, for the community colleges and technical schools... is there going to be some kind of cap, some kind of limit on enrollment this fall?

Seitzer: The president says he wants to cap enrollment, that they just can't afford to serve as many students with this cut. He said in a story today that we were sacrificing accessibility for affordability, which is sort of an interesting statement. One of the things that drew the ire of many people with the KCTCS's desire to raise
tuition 13% is that our community college tuition is about 20% higher than the national average... So in a state as poor as Kentucky the thinking has been - and Brad Cowgill when he first took the job at CPE said he wanted to freeze tuition at KCTCS - so maybe they got more than they could have gotten.

Linda Blackford: It's kind of an impossible situation when you've got these goals where you have to radically increase enrollment every year until 2020, but then they're not getting - so they're under pressure to do that but then - but there's this constant tension with tuition increases and what that costs, and whether the state can really put the money there.

Seitzer: That's why I think, in the next session, there will be conversation going forward with the next CPE president on...What are our goals? Are they realistic? Were we just shooting at the sky in '97 when we set these goals and are we willing to pony up the cash to meet these goals? ...The whole drama has called into question whether CPE itself has been serving it's purpose. You know, first time since 1997 that they've held tuition down. ...Our editorial board has called into question - Are we monitoring the efficiency at some of these schools? ..at some of these regional schools? Are we duplicating too many programs? Are we trying to do too much with too little?