For All You Meredith Supporters Out There - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jul 21, 2005

For All You Meredith Supporters Out There

Date: Jul 21, 2005

Is This Mic On? wrote:

In a few years, we may all be wishing for a Commissioner who would have maintained the status quo.

More than the titular designations of "flagship," "land grant," & "regional," partity in how appropriations are divvied up & intelligent distribution of programs should be the driving concerns of USM supporter at this time. The status quo for funding & programs is unacceptable & always has been.

If Mississippi were to go to a strict & uniform FTE-based funding formula, it really wouldn't matter if Ole Miss were designated as the "flagship." Ayers would be a non-issue. And JSU would have to attract roughly 100% more students to move into 3rd place & to do that, it would have to pass Ole Miss.

But I don't think parity is ever going to happen. It's the old "conspiracy theory." Mississippi has only one major university (USM) south of I-20. Yet, the main population base of the state lies south of I-20. This challenges the political power structure of the state, dominated as it is by the northern counties. (Since when has a governor come from South Mississippi?)

It makes no sense at all that the Mississippi Delta & the Golden Triangle each have two universities, plus a community college in every town with more than 1,500 people. South Mississippi is supposed to content itself with USM, a small historically black land grant college & five community/junior colleges. Why? I think it's because a trade school education is all we're supposed to get down here. That way we can trot straight over to Northrup Grummand & be welders. We're a bunch of free range hog farmers & paperwooders; "their" power structure is Delta planters. That's the 1910 Mississippi that still lives in the hearts & minds of far too many of the folks in Jackson & points north.

We've been through this ad nauseum before around here.

Mississippi has too many universities. I won't argue that point. That's why the institution that's arguably the largest & serves the largest geographic "market" (remember, everything south of I-20), needs to be demoted so north Mississippi can have universities with "local service areas" that look a lot like junior college districts.

If Meredith gets the nod, USM faculty, alumni, business people from south Mississippi & anyone interested in moving the state into the 20th Century (much less the 21st) needs to keep his feet to the fire. Constantly. If needs to be kept out of his comfort zone, because I'm afraid he will slide into the North Mississippi/Jackson mindset.

But maintaining the status quo is not acceptable.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

about the funding issue--i talked this morning with someone who knows much more about the "new" funding formula than me, and it will be based on SCH generation. it will also factor in the cost of instruction by using CIP codes. it will also take into account whether the SCH's are generated at the undergraduate or graduate level (with graduate level SCH's being weighted more heavily than undergraduate SCH's). how that will impact USM, I don't know, except engineering has one of the highest cost-of-instruction factors (which would benefit MSU).

Date: Jul 21, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

about the funding issue--i talked this morning with someone who knows much more about the "new" funding formula than me, and it will be based on SCH generation. it will also factor in the cost of instruction by using CIP codes. it will also take into account whether the SCH's are generated at the undergraduate or graduate level (with graduate level SCH's being weighted more heavily than undergraduate SCH's). how that will impact USM, I don't know, except engineering has one of the highest cost-of-instruction factors (which would benefit MSU).

SCM: can you explain the relationship between CIP codes and cost of Instruction? Where are these listed?

Thanks.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

CIP refers to the classification of instructional programs. if you go to the National Center for Educational Statistics website, you can download them (it is a large download). everytime a course or program is approved here or at any university it has to be assigned a CIP number. lots of our statistics are reported to the board (and other groups like SREB and Carnegie) in CIP numbers (sometimes two decimal points sometimes four). CIP numbers don't have cost of instruction associated with them. but states like Texas have used CIP numbers as the basis for figuring cost of instruction. it is my understanding that our board will do something like the Texas system did.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

Thanks.

I know about the CIPs but didn't realize they were hooked into some kind of formula for funding. Obviously, I'm extemely interested to see what the instructional costs for theatre students are reputed to be . . .

Love this Board as an educational tool for educators . . . .

Date: Jul 21, 2005

actually, what I meant to say (ref. your note) is that they are used as identifiers for funding (as opposed to "hooked into."

Thanks again.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

SCM's note about engineering programs is worth noting again. UM has a school of engineering, too. It's not just State that would benefit from such a scheme. My bet is that USM has few, if any, "high cost" programs. (Something tells me that "engineering technology" won't be weighted preferentially...)

Date: Jul 21, 2005

Invictus wrote:

My bet is that USM has few, if any, "high cost" programs.

It follows that if the cost of running the programs is not high USM won't need as much.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

As part of a class project during my time in the School of Social Work at USM, my group did a study which included the then-extant funding formula. Even though based on FTE, it included a "hold-harmless" rule, as we were led to understand it, which said that if a shift in enrollment resulted in one university receiving more funds than the previous year at a cost to another university then the appropriation would not be changed. According to the figures we were able to determine, this represented roughly a $37 million advantage to MSU with that "subsidy" being about equally split between UM and USM. In other words, had they based strictly on FTE without the hold-harmless rule, we'd have received about $18.5 million more in funding. Ole Miss would have about the same increase...which made us all wonder why the Ole Miss alumni weren't up in arms about it.

I'm not familiar enough with the new SCH plan to comment. What I can say is that it is clearly no secret that money can be a weapon. It will be interesting to see what Dr. Meredith's tenure will mean in regards to how that weapon may be used.

Date: Jul 21, 2005

Low Overhead wrote:

Invictus wrote:
My bet is that USM has few, if any, "high cost" programs.
It follows that if the cost of running the programs is not high USM won't need as much.

Having wrestled with funding formulas in another system, I'll just note that the definition of "high cost programs" is usually very politicized. The definition of "high cost program" in general has very little to do with the actual cost per student, but has more to do with how those who are responsible for funding perceive how costs should fall out. Or how they want the funding to fall out.

My experience is that when one gets down to the brass tacks of defining "high cost program," nobody, business managers included, has a clue. So it ends up being a matter of "Well, I'm pretty sure these programs cost more." The name of the game is ensuring that one's institution has the maximum number of high cost programs rather than actually basing anything on what educating students in those programs actually costs. This doesn't happen by being honest about the actual costs of programs. It happens by politically influencing the perceptions of the decision makers.

Moreover, "high cost programs" are often the very programs that have the greatest potential for external funding. Let's not forget, either, than engineering is typically a five-year degree program & the students aren't populating the engineering classrooms in any significant numbers until their junior years. The university collects an additional year of tuition from those students.

Once the appropriation is tendered to the institution, it all goes into the general fund. Thus, having "high cost programs" would enable an institution to underwrite "better" efforts in the low cost areas.

"High cost programs" is a bunch of

. I have adamantly opposed the concept professionally for my entire career, because it is simply

"voodoo economics."