PORTLAND, Maine — The University of Maine System will request flat funding from state government for the next two years and has pledged that if it receives that level of funding, it will keep tuition rates flat for two years as well.
Both tuition and state expenditures on the university system have crept upward nearly every year for decades, but, contingent on a vote Monday by the system’s trustees, those days are over while the system takes steps to make its operation leaner.
“There’s certainly no question that state government and the university system are in very serious financial times,” said Rebecca Wyke, the system’s vice chancellor for finance and administration. “Our students and families are also struggling. We are hoping that by making a commitment to freezing tuition for an additional two years the state will see that we are serious in-house about looking at how we spend money.”
Wyke said the system, which also froze tuition in the current academic year, is undergoing a process of finding new efficiencies in back-office functions such as human resources, information technology and procurement and is also looking seriously at reducing administrative costs systemwide. Wyke said recommendations on changes in administration won’t be ready for several months, but that the intent of the process is to find enough cost cuts to not only create long-term savings, but to invest more in classrooms as well.
Wyke said this year’s tuition freeze — and those proposed for the next two years — represent the first time the system has done that in at least 25 years. She said state funding also has increased nearly every year except for during economic recessions, such as the current one.
In 2008, which is when the U.S. financial industry nearly collapsed, state funding for the system was about $183 million. That number fell to $171 million by 2010 before rebounding to $179 million in 2012. The current year’s funding stands at $176.2 million, which is also what the system trustees will vote whether to ask for in fiscal years 2014 and 2015.
Wyke said that in the past two decades state funding has not kept up with new expenses, which has caused pressure on tuition revenues.
“Increasingly over the past 20 years the cost of public higher education has shifted toward students and their families,” said Wyke. “It’s a phenomenon that’s happening across the country. Just continuing to raise tuition could out-price us in the market that we’re in.”
Wyke said the system is also strategizing about how to respond to an increasing number of nontraditional students — namely adults and mid-career professionals — who comprise a rising percentage of the system’s enrollment.
Ryan Low, executive director of governmental and external affairs for the system, said state funding comprises about 30 percent of the budget, three-quarters of which is personnel costs. He said the system is intent on cutting costs without major impacts on student programming.
“Keeping the revenue base flat will not be easy,” said Low. “The hope is that we take a fresh look at all facets of operations. We want to leverage the resources we have across all seven campuses.”
The system’s goals follow a September 2011 letter from Gov. Paul LePage to the system’s trustees in which he asked them to do more with less behind the strength of “bigger and bolder” savings initiatives.
“Given the tough economic challenges facing the state, more money — either from the general fund or tuition increases — cannot be the solution,” wrote LePage. “Instead, I suggest reforms related to resource allocation, increased productivity, elimination of duplicative services, specialization, innovation, and perhaps through the selection of a proven agent of change as the next chancellor of the University System.”
In February, the system hired James H. Page, former CEO of the James W. Sewall Company in Old Town, as its chancellor following the retirement of Richard Pattenaude.
Wyke, who also was considered for the post, said some of the system’s cost-saving initiatives, including this year’s frozen tuition and a list of aggressive goals adopted by trustees in January, preceded Page but that streamlining the system is among his core focuses.
“He is fully committed to both,” said Wyke.
Wyke said she expects the board to approve the tuition freeze and request for a flat state appropriation on Monday.
“If they agree with this on Monday, as treasurer of the board I will clearly understand my marching orders,” she said.
The Board of Trustees and its various committees will be meeting throughout the day Monday beginning at 9 a.m. in the University of Southern Maine’s Glickman Library in Portland.
Both Becky Wyke and Ryan Low were hired without searches, as detailed some months ago by John Christie and Naomi Shallit’s non-partisan investigative team. Wyke was indeed a finalist for the Chancellorship and embarrassed herself in her public appearances by her unbelievable ignorance of basic facts about the seven “real” campuses she otherwise never visits. She earned $165,000 base salary when the System last revealed its salaries and has been instrumental in denying all ordinary employees–not just faculty–any payraises for four years now despite having millions in reserve. Both were Baldacci Admin. higherups who needed new jobs when his term was coming to an end. Their commitment to freezing tuition is not because they care about students or the peasant employees on the seven campuses. The System has barely cut back a single employee and now has former USM President Selma Botman allegedly recruiting international students at $203,000.
Wyke was indeed hired in a closed process. True enough.
That said, she has done a good job, all things considered.
Botman’s $203k was hardly her decision and the reserves noted were required by GASB-45 accounting rules and only partially close with UMS obligations to fund post-employment benefits.
Wyke appears to have the personal attributes and skills for the tough times ahead. Holding the line on student costs will require major adaptations, undoubtedly including staff reductions, increased loads, and restricted options.
Please rest assured that campus employees will not be the only parties shouldering the burden of flattening the cost curve. System Office employees and especially System IT and “centralization” projects will need to contribute to minimize the impact on cash-generating instruction and research.
Necessity can focus the mind.
We could start by laying off high-paid administrators that never see a lecture hall – let alone a live student – and put that money into classroom education…
…and those that actually teach there.
Yessah
Whether Wyke has done a good job is, of course, a matter of opinion. Yes, she is a wiz at numbers crunching, but (higher) ed isn’t solely about that. When she visited Orono as a candidate for Chancellor she demonstrated woeful ignorance of, for example, declining faculty nos. and so declining enrollments through fewer course offerings (she blamed the faculty alone); the composition of our growing no. of international students–mostly grad students–as allegedly being athletes (what a joke); and got into an argument about student aid with Orono’s highly respected student aid director. According to the past several years of System salaries, the IT employees have grown in numbers, have earned salaries higher than nearly all senior faculty at all of the seven “real” campuses; and have repeatedly failed to justify the untold millions spent on PeopleSoft, for instance. No one outside of the System Office believes that any substantial cutbacks will occur. And Botman conveniently replaced former Vice Chancellor Breece–who earned only $180,000 base salary–in recruiting inter. students, something that several Maine prep schools have done for a heck of a lot less and with far more students to show for their efforts.
The U of M is over-rated, over-priced, and over-managed.
Ile tell you what why don’t you start a University an show everyone how its done ?
Somebody, somewhere, must’a felt a little heat, this ain’t no, goodness of the heart, U of M idea.
Keep the tuition rates flat! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! I can’t afford to send my three kids to school precisely because the tuition rates combined with the other actual driving costs, i.e. food, books, lodging, etc… are more than I make in a single year! Who, other than the rich, or financially irresponsible can afford that? My children and I did the math and in order for all three of my children to attend the University of Maine, they/I have to pony up a whopping $52K. This figure includes just the basic costs. Realistically, if one of my children took student loans to pay for everything, they’d owe a minimum of $80K upon the day of their graduation… What a great way to start ones life huh? This makes me so damned angry I could scream!
I sympathize but where are they going to college? Any cheaper?
We’ve looked at community and tech schools but the least expensive still runs at least 8-10k once all the costs have been added together. Thats still a minimum of 24k a year for all three. However, we’ll only have to do that for one year. Two of my kids will be going at the same time… Its all moot at this point. School is just to overpriced. I could send one, but I won’t do that, they both want to go and picking one over the other just isn’t fair, nor even a remote possibility for their mother and I.