JOPLIN, Mo. — Gov. Jay Nixon’s proposed cuts of 12.5 percent to funding for higher education aren’t sitting well with officials or students at Missouri Southern State University.

MSSU President Bruce Speck on Wednesday said the governor’s proposal is discouraging and confusing. He said the governor in his State of the State address Tuesday night promoted signs of economic recovery without acknowledging the role of universities in training people for those jobs.

“We’re talking about really a huge step backward in terms of higher education,” Speck said, noting that Southern’s state funding would be at 1990s levels if the proposal is approved.

Speck said there are two sides to a balance sheet, and the state needs to consider ways to raise revenue.

“I know it’s political, but I just don’t see why taxation of cigarettes is such a problem,” he said, using one example. “It seems there’s some areas they could explore.”

Rob Yust, MSSU vice president for business affairs, said the proposed cut would result in a loss of $2.7 million to the university. Net state appropriations in the current fiscal year total $21.9 million, and that could be reduced to $19.2 million in fiscal 2013 under Nixon’s proposal.

Speck said the most disturbing part of Nixon’s speech was when he asked university officials to look for ways to cut overhead costs and become more efficient.

“I really am concerned people can get the wrong message,” Speck said. He said suggesting that there is a lot of waste at universities when the state already has cut their funding so drastically would be wrong.

Speck and Yust said faculty members are in their fourth year with no raises.

TUITION INCREASE

Speck said the Board of Governors will consider raising the tuition rate.

“There will be a tuition increase,” he said. “We’ve got to have sources of income to offset costs. We’ve got some decisions to make.”

He said there have been no specific discussions about programs or areas that may be cut.

“We want to be sensitive” in discussing potential cuts, Speck said. “I don’t want to send a lot of fear in the hearts of people that we’re going to have mass layoffs.”

The idea of paying higher tuition wasn’t well-received by some students who were asked about it. An increase of $20 per credit hour approved by the Board of Governors took effect last fall, for a rate of $163 per credit hour. The Missouri commissioner of higher education waived a penalty against MSSU for exceeding the state cap on tuition increases. Speck and Yust said future increases would be tied to the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation.

Megan Ross, a Joplin junior, works in the bookstore at Billingsly Student Center in a job she said pays well. But she said she doesn’t get much financial aid.

“That would be very painful,” Ross said of any tuition increase. “That would hurt a lot.”

Mackenzie Buckner, a Joplin sophomore, said she has several scholarships and still owes $400 on her tuition. She said she has an off-campus job but finds it difficult to schedule work around her class schedule. She lives with her parents.

“I couldn’t imagine if I had other bills to pay,” Buckner said.

‘REALLY SAD’

Sherry Buchanan, chairwoman of the MSSU Board of Governors, said there may be some discussion about the governor’s proposal at Friday’s board meeting, but the board will discuss the matter in more detail at a March retreat. She said the board members had hoped that this would the year that the state held the line on further cuts to universities, since they have been the target of the cuts over the past few years.

“We’re continuing to be asked to do more with less,” Buchanan said. “We’re just at a point where we’re going to have to look at the realities of deficit spending, but that can’t continue year after year without it getting gruesome.”

She said Missouri is near the bottom in a ranking of states in terms of per-capita spending on higher education.

“That’s really sad,” she said.

State Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Webb City, whose district includes MSSU, said he doesn’t think higher education can withstand such a cut.

“There’s going to be a fight,” Davis said.

“We say that we’re in a global economy. If we don’t educate our kids, we’re going to fall behind. If we continue to cut higher education, we’re going to continue to fall behind.”

Davis said the cut would be devastating to MSSU and other universities.

“That’s going to put them in a financial hardship, especially if they’re not allowed to increase tuition,” he said.

Nixon’s office declined to comment on the concerns of MSSU officials.

Efforts to obtain comment from state Sen. Ron Richard, R-Joplin, were unsuccessful Wednesday. Richard is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Associated Press reported that Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he does not intend to follow Nixon’s college-funding recommendation when preparing the state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. But he said it was too soon to know how much funding he would propose for higher education institutions.

The governor’s proposed cut is “a huge blow, not just for the education community itself, but I think for the advancement of economic development of the state of Missouri,” Schaefer said.





State cuts



ROB YUST, MSSU vice president for business affairs, said that if the governor’s proposal is approved, state cuts to MSSU would total $6.7 million over three years, from the $25.9 million it received in fiscal year 2010.