UHCL’s slow enrollment growth leads to 10 percent budget cut for 2017-18

The state-funding allocations for the upcoming biennium for all four University of Houston System institutions were finalized by the Texas Legislature May 29.

UHCL and UH-Victoria’s state funding for the 2017-18 academic year was cut by approximately 10 percent, while UH and UH-Victoria saw total state funding increase by 3.5 and 3.3 percent respectively.

UHCL is attempting to find the balance between cutting costs within each area of the university while also considering students’ needs.

“We want to minimize the impact on students as much as possible,” said Jean Carr, executive director of the budget office. “Realistically, there may be a decline in services and delay in response time due to the reductions.”

The amount of state funding allocated for public universities is largely dependent on enrollment growth.

Enrollment

Most state-allocated money is distributed to each university according to a series of formulas that revolve primarily around enrollment figures. UHCL did not receive enrollment-growth-based funding because Spring 2017 undergraduate enrollment only increased by 180 students from last year, and graduate student enrollment decreased by 300 students from last year.

“Those universities that are growing faster than other universities across the state (UH, UHD) fared much better than those that are not growing as fast as other state universities (UHCL, UHV),” said University of Houston Vice Chancellor of Governmental Relations Jason Smith in an email sent out to UH System employees June 22. “A pattern has emerged where the smaller universities continuously struggle to maintain their funding and, as a consequence, their mission.”

University officials involved in academic affairs meet regularly to develop new strategies to increase both international and domestic enrollment. Carr said two of the strategies that have become a focus are “program-by-program review and analysis and diversification of international recruiting.”

One strategy the university is focusing on to increase enrollment is to attract more international students. International students pay more per credit hour than domestic students and bring in more money to the university than domestic students.

“The community college in the area with the largest number of international students is Houston Community College,” said Glen Houston, interim senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “This is a very diverse city with international students all around, and we need to be attracting those students.”

One issue Houston cited that prevents UHCL from attracting international students is the lack of available public transportation. Many international students use Metro buses to commute to school, which do not run to UHCL.

Graduate programs at UHCL are attempting to do their part to increase enrollment to receive more state funding.

“The colleges here are looking to speed up graduation rates by allowing students to finish earlier than before,” Houston said. “One thing that the College of Business has done is that they took their 54-hour MBA and reduced it to 39 hours. Things like that that you can do with your program to make it more attractive and less expensive, will help us out in the long run.”

 Special Items

The final version of the state budget gave more funding to universities than the original version of the budget filed by the Texas Senate, which proposed to cut all “special items” – a total of $52 million for the UH System.

Special items allow lawmakers to insert money for university initiatives – such as institutional enhancement, funding for research initiatives and downward expansion – into the state budget outside of the standard appropriations formulas. UH System campuses have relied on these special items as a part of everyday operations for many years.

Universities seek out special item funding because special items fall outside of the standard budget allocation formulas; special items give universities extra money to use for whatever initiatives they and the state deem as important enough to receive extra financial attention.

“UHCL currently receives funding for five special items,” Carr said. “These were each cut for the FY18-FY19 biennium. The total special item funding reduction for the FY18-FY19 biennium is $4,148,252, or 34 percent.”

Three of UHCL’s five special items provide funding for specific areas: high technology laboratories within the College of Science and Engineering, the Houston Partnership for Environmental Studies (funding which supports the Environmental Institute of Houston) and the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities. The other two special items – research initiatives and downward expansion – support the entire university.

Special item funding is intended to be provided as money to help universities get certain programs off the ground.

Critics of special item funding point to the fact that funding often becomes a part of a university’s base budget long after the intended special item initiative has been established.

“We are trying to rationalize the system,” said state Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo), chair of the Senate Committee on Higher Education. “The fact is that the requests for them are huge and very expensive.”

The final version of the state budget passed by the Texas Legislature allowed UH System institutions to retain current structure for special item funding for now, though all special items were given a 35 percent cut at all state universities.

The legislature also established a committee to study special item funding closer to determine whether or not it is a good use of the state’s allocation to universities.

In his June 22 email, Smith said that the formation of this committee could bring a “permanent end to special item funding… [It] should serve as a wake-up call to our universities that we must work harder to find alternative funding sources” for the areas currently reliant on special item funding.

---

Also published on Medium.