HSU budget crunch:Is state policy to blame?

Times-Standard 2/15/07

By Ann Johnson-Stromberg

Nothing could be more tense than not knowing whether it will be your program or your class that will be cut out of next year's budget. Just ask the staff and faculty at Humboldt State University that have been walking around on egg shells for months as the doom and gloom of reality sets in.

One of the questions departments have been asking is, once this round of $5 million cuts is over, will they find themselves in the same place next year or a few years down the line? The reason they are asking this question, is because HSU has been on the losing end of an inequitable distribution of educational reimbursement program that affects California State University and University of California.

Currently, the state of California pays approximately $7,200 per year for each full-time equivalent student (FTES) enrolled in a CSU or UC school. With each added student, the school makes more money. The system is set up knowing that some programs are more expensive to offer and some are less expensive and the assumption is that two will even each other out.

According to HSU Provost and Vice President Richard Vrem, Humboldt currently offers the second most expensive mix of programs in the entire CSU and UC system -- second only to Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo.

The average cost to educate an HSU student varies by program, but Vrem said that the two most expensive departments to run in education are sciences and arts -- both are areas that Humboldt specializes in, and are the categories in which the majority of students fall into. On average programs in sciences, natural resources and art cost between $6,500 and $10,000 per year. Vrem said that nursing programs cost nearly $11,000. Programs in social sciences or humanities cost only $3,000 to $5,000 in comparison, he said.

The one-size-fits-all approach for reimbursements is relatively recent and Vrem said that the current structure was created to make the process easier to understand. One hope on the horizon is that right now the state chancellor's office and its board of trustees are in the process of creating a new strategic plan titled “Access to Excellence.”

To help the board weigh in on the process there is a site visit planned for each school in the system to see what their needs are and how the current program is working. University Budget Committee co-Chair Saeed Mortazavi said that Feb. 26 is the date for Humboldt State's site visit and he is hoping the campus will be able to convince them that the current reimbursement program is setting HSU up for failure.