My previous post (Enough Bang for Your Buck?, May 2) addressed the big picture regarding troubles with educational spending and how it intertwined with faculty concerns about the fiscal future of the university. The Compete Missouri plan, as it stands, will take $7 million of in-house money in order to fund faculty salary increases. That money is coming from cuts from the pool of money that some faculty believe will eliminate too many full-time faculty, teaching assistant and research assistant positions.
An interesting article in the Miami Herald today reports on the University of Florida’s decision to cut 400 jobs, which will include eliminating vacant positions and laying off 20 faculty members and over 100 staff members. The school, the article says, also will reduce undergraduate enrollment by 4,000 students over four years, beginning with a decrease of transfer students by 1,000 next year.
Florida has been mired in a budget crunch of its own for the last several years, much like the situation Missouri finds itself in. Many of Florida’s pubic institutions will be seeing cuts in some form, the article said, leaving fewer spots for in-state students to attend the colleges and universities.
It’s not so much that this story has a direct pull to MU, but in light of what has been going on from a fiscal standpoint, both here and across the country, showing that Missouri isn’t alone is very mildly relieving. But it brings up the bigger worry of just what is happening nationwide to the public higher education system. It’s a problem that, as each report of budget cuts comes in, seems only to be getting bigger as the public pocketbook gets smaller.
