University of Montana Students are Fully Aware of the Funding Implications for Programs and Seek to have Funded the Important Programs
Students, others urge full funding of UM campuses' budgets
HELENA — Students from University of Montana campuses in Missoula, Butte, Dillon and Helena joined administrators and graduates Wednesday in urging a legislative panel to fully fund Gov. Brian Schweitzer's
budget for the Montana University System.
They made their pitch to the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, which has heard presentations from other higher -education institutions earlier in the week.
Earlier this month, the Republican majority on the subcommittee cut the general-fund spending for higher education by 5 percent as a starting point for the work on the budget. Democrats opposed the motion.
The governor's budget office has said that if those cuts stand, tuition would have to be raised by 16 percent and 19 percent over the next two years to maintain the same services.
Speakers, including a busload of students from Missoula, said higher education is now affordable at state colleges and universities, but they warned that may not be the case if the budget is cut.
"I hope you make a decision to keep wonderful education affordable for students who want to attend the University of Montana," said Elizabeth Fullerton, who said she came from a lower-middle-income Helena family and is taking Russian studies and language.
Lucas Berry, a student taking welding at UM's Missoula College of Technology, said the college is so overcrowded that some courses are taught in trailers. UM officials, who are trying to get bonding for a new building, have said the current facility was built for 700 students in the 1960s, but enrollment has skyrocketed to 2,500.
Whitney Lott, student body president of Montana Tech, said the students there want to make sure that the college's outstanding quality is maintained.
"I think too many cutbacks could lead to a slippery slope of quality at too many schools," she said.
Jeffrey Edmunds, a UM Missoula student, said he also comes from a lower-middle-income family.
"I'm $20,000 in debt, and I haven't graduated yet," he said, adding: "Education is something we need to prioritize. We need education. It facilitates the quality of jobs."
UM President Royce Engstrom called the Montana University System "one of the most cost-effective systems in the country."
Looking ahead, he said, up to 68 percent of the job replacements or new jobs in Montana will require a degree or a credential of some sort.
"We are educating Montanans for the jobs that are going to be available to them in the next decade," he said.
He called UM a critical element in Montana's competitiveness in the coming decade.
The UM campuses are educating more than 21,000 students combined, he said, with about 16,500 of them from Montana. Engstrom said nearly 3,700 graduated last year with some kind of degree from one of the UM campuses.
He told the legislators at the close of the hearing that the UM students, as they heard, "are highly satisfied customers" and "highly qualified products" and that the thousands of students who leave Montana's universities annually "are an investment that pays off."
Richard Storey, chancellor of the University of Montana-Western in Dillon, said the college remains "the most affordable baccalaureate institute in the region." UM-Western has reinvented itself in recent years and is the only public institution nationally to teach classes in four-week blocks where students will study only one subject during that time before moving onto another subject for four weeks, instead of taking multiple classes a week for a semester.
"Our enrollment has increased steadily since then," he said. "It's up 10 percent this year."
Chancellor Frank Gilmore said Montana Tech is about jobs.
"We're able to help companies create jobs," he said. "We're about assisting our graduates in getting good jobs. We're also about assisting our alumni."
Doug Abbott, vice chancellor for academic affairs at Montana Tech, was asked later by Sen. Bradley Hamlett, D-Cascade, about a Tech graduate's return on investment.
"I think Montana Tech offers an excellent ROI (return on investment) for students," Abbott said.
He said mining engineering and other engineering graduates start at average annual salaries of $63,000 right out of college, with some hired at $150,000 for their first job.
"That's a pretty good wage for a 22-, 23-year-old," Abbott said.
In 2009, 93 percent of Montana Tech graduated had landed a job, less than the usual rate of 95 percent to 96 percent, the official said.
Daniel Bingham, dean and CEO of UM's Helena College of Technology, said enrollment at the campus has grown by 91 percent since 2001 and now has 1,500 students, larger than a number of the U-System campuses.
"At some point in time, we have to ask ourselves, can we continue to take more students," he said.
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Posted in Montana on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 6:30 pm Updated: 10:33 pm. University Of Montana, University System, University System Tuition, Montana Legislature, | Tags:
