As legislators debate Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposed budget, which includes a 9-percent cut to higher education funding, university leaders are working to convince lawmakers of the impacts the cuts would have. Meanwhile, education officials are contemplating a switch to a performance-based funding model.
Murray State University president Bob Davies says MSU has worked to handle a 15-percent cut over the last eight years, but with the additional 9-percent reduction, the institution could start to see changes.
“We’re beyond simple cuts, we’re beyond cutting into muscle, we’re talking into the bone," said Davies. "And I think that that in itself started to open some minds. And more and more individuals are talking about it: community members, students, faculty, staff, alumni, the whole like are really inundating legislators with notes about the impacts and everything else.”
Recently students championed a change.org petition -- now with more than 3,100 signatures -- to garner support in opposition to the cuts. Students are also organizing a march in Frankfort later this month.
Davies says this is also a difficult time for lawmakers to suggest a performance-based funding model.
Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education is seeking around $86 million in new state funding to reward universities that achieve certain performance-based goals, such as graduation rates and retention.
“The situation that we’re in is: to cut the 9 percent and then with the expectation to perform even better," said Davies. "We cannot lose sight that this is at the end of a series of cuts that have occurred at universities in the Commonwealth over the past eight years, totally nearly fifteen percent. And so it’s a very, very difficult time to be talking about performance funding coming right on the heels of these reductions.”
He says the university would support a performance funding model with well-defined metrics and outlines for success.
The budget is currently working its way through the House.
