Group starts ‘marathon’ higher ed funding drive

State business leaders on lobbying tour of Kansas

Bill Hall has been crisscrossing the state, telling of the funding woes Kansas colleges and universities face and what should be done about it.

But Hall, president of Kansas Citizens for Higher Education, isn’t expecting his advocacy to pay off quickly.

“I believe the upcoming Legislature will be less sympathetic” to higher education, Hall said. “That’s why I say this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Hall, president of the Hall Family Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., was among a contingent of representatives from Kansas Citizens for Higher Education who were in Lawrence on Wednesday to speak at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon and a Kansas University forum. About 25 people attended the KU forum, most of whom were administrators. About 40 people attended the chamber luncheon.

The group, founded in 2002, is composed of business leaders from across the state who are advocating an increase in higher education funding. It has commissioned several studies, including one that showed the state’s university funding is low compared with other states with Big 12 institutions and another that showed the impact of higher education institutions in each state Senate district.

Now, the group is on a tour of Kansas towns to discuss its research findings and rally for increased university funds.

Bill Taylor, a retired partner with the Ernst and Young accounting firm, blamed tax cuts in the late 1990s for shortfalls in university funding. According to data compiled by the group, the state would need to spend an additional $76 million a year to equal spending levels of 1990, when adjusted for inflation and enrollment growth.

Bringing spending to a level that equals the average of states with Big 12 universities would take $184 million a year.

Hall said Citizens for Higher Education was advocating an increase in state spending and continued increases in tuition. The goal, he said, should be for both levels to be near the average of Big 12 universities.

A presentation comparing Kansas colleges' tuition and fees with other Big 12 states is shown by Bill Hall as evidence that Kansas underfunds education. Hall, who spoke on behalf of the Citizens for Higher Education on Wednesday at Kansas University, advocated for increased funding from both the Kansas Legislature and through raising tuition and fees.

According to the group’s reports, Kansas ranks second to last, trailed only by Colorado, for per-student funding for higher education, while only the University of Colorado, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University are more expensive to attend than KU and Kansas State University.

“I don’t believe the Legislature should ask parents to foot the entire bill for any shortfalls they have,” Hall said.

Taylor said Citizens for Higher Education had focused mostly on education efforts to this point but expected the group to step up its lobbying during the next legislative session, which likely will be dominated by talk of K-12 education funding. He said it also was possible that the group’s tax status could be changed to allow political contributions.

Hall said the group also likely would begin completing a report card after each legislative session, grading each legislator’s support of higher education.

David Shulenburger, KU’s provost and executive vice chancellor, said having groups like Citizens for Higher Education lobby for universities could only help. He said adding funds at the level being discussed by the group would make a significant difference on KU’s campuses, noting that the Lawrence campus portion of the suggested $76 million would be about $15.2 million.

“That’s a tremendous number of faculty we could hire,” he said. “That’s a lot of maintenance we could do.”