New College Budget Proposal in State Legislature

By James Trent

On February 15, 2018

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There is a new budget in the works on the state level that could substantially help small colleges like Concord.

Sometime last year, the Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) was asked to investigate how money was being distributed to the various colleges around the state. The HEPC’s report showed that many college were getting different amounts of funding per student.

The report had the 11 largest colleges in the state. Of those 11, the top three colleges that were receiving the most funding were West Virginia University, Marshall University, and Fairmont University. West Virginia University, for reference, had a 2018 base budget of over $100,000, which is nearly twice Marshall’s, who received $54,000. Concord sat in the middle, the sixth out of 11, with just over $8,000 for the year.

Looking at these numbers illustrates an obvious gap between West Virginia University and nearly every other college in the state. West Virginia University gets just under twice as much as the second college, but even more striking is that it gets nearly 28 times as much as the least funded college in the state, which is Potomac State College of WVU.

The funding being discussed is intended to be by general enrollment, but not exactly per student. The report says, “West Virginia’s current funding model is a holdover from more than 30 years ago… Over the years, through various governance and coordinating body structures, funding was directed toward institutions based on requests and need, as well as on desires of legislative leaders representing their constituents (the institutions in their districts).” This means that funding has been given by reported need and generalized enrollment reports, but there has also been an element of politics dictating which school gets what.

The idea behind funding colleges per student is that the larger need of bigger campuses will be offset if they keep up a larger student population. Bigger campuses need more money, but if they have more students, they will get the money they need. Since funding is not made on direct, per student calculations, a bad year of enrollment would have little effect on West Virginia University’s funding. This, when taken along with the deficit between WVU and the other colleges, becomes even more frustrating when WVU’s large out of state population is considered. Money invested in those students will often never be returned to the state of West Virginia.

Concord advocated for a new formula at Higher Education Day in January. Student Government Association President Sarah Fancher explained that the proposed formula “looks in to things like the number of in-state students, the number of first generation students, low income students, types of programs taught, graduation rates, retention rates, those kinds of things. Those first three things Concord greatly accelerates in, so this would obviously benefit us.”

The new formula would not only benefit Concord, however. The new formula would benefit every public institution in the state except for WVU.

No exact numbers have been attached to the formula yet, so there is currently no hard data on exactly how much more money colleges could expect under the new plan. However, the new formula holds promise for colleges like Concord that have been struggling with state level budget cuts on higher education over the last few years.