President’s Circle on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Aiming to respond to the results of a legislative audit released last year, some Utah Republican lawmakers hope 10% of its budget for higher education funds will be redirected to pay for high-performing degrees, instead of going to less efficient college programs. It’s a move that legislative leaders expect will ensure a high return on investment for students and the state.
But, not every Republican is on board with the idea. Like many Democrats in the Legislature, some are concerned about losing an important part of academia — critical thinking.
The audit recommended that higher education institutions “develop and oversee a uniform methodology to calculate program-level return on investment, including program costs and completion rates.”
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Auditors also suggested cutting some programs that are offered by multiple institutions and have low enrollment and graduation metrics — such as some language majors — to favor study areas with high workforce demands, like nursing and software engineering.
“I do love the idea that we prepare students for the workforce, but I also am a little bit concerned that we’re blurring the distinction between a technical college and a university, and what makes a university different,” North Ogden Republican Sen. John Johnson said on Thursday.
Audit: Could cutting low-performing college programs help Utah’s academic outlook?
In the middle of the rise of artificial intelligence, the state should be thinking about the value of traditional education and what it takes to train the future leaders.
“I’m a little bit concerned with the focus only being on, ‘did this person get a job?’” Johnson said. “I want to know, did this person create a new venture? Did they create something in the new economy? Did they become the great leaders in academia or did we produce the next generation of thinkers that are going to be involved in the legislative process?”
In short, Johnson said, he’s worried about turning traditional universities into technical colleges.
“I’m glad you’re all sitting down, because I couldn’t agree with Sen. Johnson more, and that’s not something I say frequently,” Senate Minority Caucus Manager, Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, said in response to Johnson’s comments. “Our jobs feed us and our jobs shelter us, but our ideas connect us, and those ideas are important.”
Making decisions based on occupational optimization and efficiency ratios may make Utah schools less attractive to prospective students who want to explore many ideas and connections in college, Riebe said.
Sen. Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, a former Senate majority leader, is also skeptical of the reallocation idea. While he agrees with some restructuring the state is planning on, he believes that those who need to work with people should be able to develop critical thinking and writing skills, and be able to interact with others on a regular basis to advance in their careers.
“Just keep this in mind. As an employer, if you give me a professional that only knows their science and only knows their profession, it’s going to be hard for me to employ them in my setting,” he said.
However, Rep. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, who is running HB1, a base budget for higher education that contains the funding reallocations, defended her bill, arguing that some of the 750 programs in the state graduate one student per year.
“Sometimes we want to jump to saying, this is an attack on the liberal arts, but it’s not,” she said, adding that as a liberal arts alumna, she found value in the classes she took.
When she thinks about the reallocations, she said, she thinks about taking students’ interests and passions and, if they are not in demand, guiding them to similar programs that have more open doors.
“We need to be really careful in this conversation, because it isn’t about the value of just learning and the value of being lifelong learners and all of that that comes from a university education,” Peterson said. “It really is about making every dollar count in our system and making opportunities count for students in a way that provides them both general and specific education.”
Where do schools stand on the process?
The Utah System of Higher Education, which oversees public colleges and universities, has goals that are similar to the recommendations made by the audit, Geoff Landward, Commissioner of Higher Education, told lawmakers on Thursday. But, he advocated for an objective, data-informed process.
“We want to make sure that we’re being thoughtful about how you determine what makes a program valuable, that you determine what is the kind of return on investment that we’re looking for,” he said. “These are all things that need to be carefully considered.”
While Landward’s team is working on studying the expenditures of programs, courses and administration for the allocation process, he wants lawmakers to consider multiple factors when making any decisions.
“Just because a program has low enrollment doesn’t automatically mean that program is not a high value program,” he said. “Conversely, just because a program has high enrollment does not necessarily mean that it is a high value program.”
A survey that reached thousands of Utah employers showed interesting results, Landward said.
“The response was essentially, ‘look, you’re doing very well at training them in a lot of the technical skills that they need to be successful, but what they’re lacking are durable skills. What they’re lacking are critical thinking, communication, the ability to collaborate and work with others,’” Landward said.
The system would like to invest in activities that meet the demand for occupations that are important to the state. But, also would like to know not only where there’s currently high demand, but where are the industries of the future that may not have high demand yet, he said.
“We want this to be a process that doesn’t unintentionally harm the students who have enrolled in our institutions with expectations of what they want to study and what the outcomes will be,” Landward told legislators.
Speaker of the House Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told reporters on Thursday that these higher education reallocations are a big priority for his caucus. And, while universities pushed back hard on previous cut proposals, this year they are working with the Legislature to find areas to refocus some resources.
“I’ve been really impressed with Rep. Karen Peterson, as well as Sen. (Ann) Milner, who have been working with the Board of Higher Ed trying to find and land us into a good spot,” he said.
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