JOPLIN, Mo. —
Less funding, more state expectations and perhaps even more central planning could be on the horizon for Missouri’s higher-education landscape.
Recent months have been marked by a state audit that concluded that the usual steps for funding four-year institutions are “disjointed,” and by a summit meeting at which Gov. Jay Nixon called for a statewide review of all academic programs, for a new funding scheme, and for more collaboration among the state’s two-year and four-year institutions.
Even before that, there had been proposals to merge the two departments that oversee K-12 education and higher education.
A number of details are still to come. There are questions about how the recommendations for the academic programs and for funding would be implemented, and by whom. Simultaneously, Nixon has called for Missouri to increase its number of college graduates.
“I think there is clearly a move toward more centralization,” Bruce Speck, Missouri Southern State University president, said Thursday.
Scott Holste, a spokesman for Nixon, said Thursday that the governor is “confident” that the state, the schools and their respective governing boards can “work within the structure we currently have to maximize our progress towards the goals and objectives that the governor put forth.”
Questions about the statewide review of academic programs at universities and colleges surfaced during recent meetings at Crowder College in Neosho and Missouri Southern State University in Joplin. The former came during Crowder’s Board of Trustees meeting, the latter during Missouri Southern’s faculty senate meeting.
Nixon, addressing leaders from Missouri’s colleges and universities last month, said the state review would identify programs that are of “low productivity, low priority, or duplicative,” according to an online copy of his remarks.
He said the number of new academic programs initiated last year at public institutions outstripped the number of discontinued ones by a ratio of 5-to-1, a trend that he described as “unsustainable.” Nixon has asked for a report of that review’s findings to be submitted by Feb. 1.
Tim Gallimore, an assistant commissioner for academic affairs for the state Department of Higher Education, said the review would only make recommendations about programs. The agency lacks the statutory authority to remove them, he said.
To read more of this story, see Monday’s edition of the Globe.
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