The State of New Hampshire spends less money on higher education, per capita, than any other state. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, New Hampshire offers the least funding to its public colleges and universities and is among the states with the highest average tuition at these institutions.
Last year, only 17% of Plymouth State University’s budget was provided by the state of New Hampshire. In comparison, Maine, a state with a similar population to that of New Hampshire, spends more than twice as much on higher education and routinely furnishes its public universities with about 50% of their annual budgets.
Bill Crangle, Vice President for Financial Affairs at Plymouth State, says that the cost of instruction here is comparable to the cost of instruction at similar institutions elsewhere; the only difference is the source of the funding; state or student. According to the Plymouth State annual financial report, students’ tuition and fees account for almost 50% of the operating revenues for the university. Such high dependency upon tuition and fees translates into higher average tuition rates. In Maine, where universities depend considerably less upon tuition and fees for operating revenue, the average tuition at public colleges and universities is nearly $2,000 less than it is in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire operates on what Crangle calls a “high tuition, low aid legislative philosophy.” What this means is that the state believes that most of the burden of the cost of higher education should be upon those who wish to obtain that education and not upon the state. Whether this is the best political philosophy for funding institutions of higher education is a matter of debate, but what is certain is that New Hampshire is one of the few states that relies on it.
Crangle was reluctant to comment on why New Hampshire maintains such a fiscally conservative position, but speculated that it could be attributed to the state’s status as one of the few remaining no income tax states. “If the state is able to limit its sources of income,” says Crangle, “it can more easily control its expenditures.”
So what does placing the demand for most operating revenue upon tuition rates mean for Plymouth State? Crangle was quick to assert: “We’ve taken a pretty strong stance on quality. We are not going to jeopardize the quality of our programs because of the state’s funding, so what we’ve done is increased tuition.”
While our quality of education may not directly be in danger, there are some negative consequences to the lack of state funding. The most obvious is a student’s dependency on financial aid. More loans to cover higher tuition means greater debt after college and more anguish about the responsibility of repayment. Besides the added financial burden on students, Crangle says that updates to facilities like the archaic PE center, transitions to a campus-wide wireless network, and some regular maintenance projects may get put off until absolutely necessary because of limited financial resources.
Perhaps the most adverse effect the lack of state funding has is upon the faculty. Mr. Crangle mentioned more than once that our professors are not paid as well as they should be. The inability of the university to retain or to attract top teaching professionals because competitive compensation cannot be offered could contribute to a decline in the high quality of education that the university desires to maintain.