Is USU expecting budget cuts as well? How will this impact athletics?

ViAggie · Post by **ViAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 12:29 pm

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2 ... -instruct/

usu99 · Post by **usu99** » December 30th, 2024, 2:02 pm

How is it is possible with how much they charge for tuition and housing now that any school needs budget cuts LOL

LarryTheAggie · Post by **LarryTheAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 3:17 pm

usu99 wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 2:02 pm
How is it is possible with how much they charge for tuition and housing now that any school needs budget cuts LOL

You got me curious, so I looked. I am a professor at a peer university (to USU)in Michigan (R1, but not Michigan or Michigan State (may have just doxxed myself). My school absolutely views itself as the low price alternative to the bigger schools.

Utah State's in state tuition in half of my schools instate tuition. My kids get half their tuition paid for because I am a faculty member, and it would still be cheaper to send them to usu on instate tuition through the alumni scholarship.

ViAggie · Post by **ViAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 4:04 pm

LarryTheAggie wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 3:17 pm

usu99 wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 2:02 pm
How is it is possible with how much they charge for tuition and housing now that any school needs budget cuts LOL
You got me curious, so I looked. I am a professor at a peer university (to USU)in Michigan (R1, but not Michigan or Michigan State (may have just doxxed myself). My school absolutely views itself as the low price alternative to the bigger schools.

Utah State's in state tuition in half of my schools instate tuition. My kids get half their tuition paid for because I am a faculty member, and it would still be cheaper to send them to usu on instate tuition through the alumni scholarship.

Has to be a state school then

LarryTheAggie · Post by **LarryTheAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 4:55 pm

To answer the original question. It sounds like a budget cut for certain programs seems likely. More of a reallocation to more popular programs than an across the board budget cut.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2 ... residents/

GordoAggie · Post by **GordoAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 5:01 pm

The legislature is big mad at higher education in Utah. Too lazy to post all the links but speaker of the house has been quoted several times in media talking about it.

BearLakeMonster · Post by **BearLakeMonster** » December 30th, 2024, 5:55 pm

GordoAggie wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 5:01 pm
The legislature is big mad at higher education in Utah. Too lazy to post all the links but speaker of the house has been quoted several times in media talking about it.

^^^ This

The real conspiracy theorists will tell you it's to squeeze all the wimpy commie liberal arts classes out of existence to prevent the pollution of our children's minds.

But there is also a genuine effort to focus limited state higher ed resources on programs that will better prepare students for the jobs available now and in the future.

The tension is because your breadth of study at university is arguably as important as your depth. Humanities classes have value to society, even for engineers and business owners.

cval · Post by **cval** » December 30th, 2024, 7:34 pm

There will always be tension between those who believe that higher education should create educated people, and those who believe it should create trained workers.

Universities will always argue that the value of higher education is greater than just job training. Tech Colleges and Community Colleges can do that, but Universities should provide more. A person with a degree from a university should be able to be trained to work in many fields because they know how to explore, think, and evaluate.

trevordude · Post by **trevordude** » December 30th, 2024, 7:39 pm

If the universities get some extra scrutiny every few years it's probably a good thing. Large organizations naturally get fat overtime.

I don't think university should just solely be career prep . However, I did scratch my head a bit when USU built a big new language building. I realize there was some donation behind it, but didn't make a ton of sense to me. Hopefully it's mixed use for more than just language.

https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-pre ... -languages

FromLItoLogan · Post by **FromLItoLogan** » December 30th, 2024, 7:42 pm

trevordude wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 7:39 pm
If the universities get some extra scrutiny every few years it's probably a good thing. Large organizations naturally get fat overtime.

I don't think university should just solely be career prep . However, I did scratch my head a bit when USU built a big new language building. I realize there was some donation behind it, but didn't make a ton of sense to me. Hopefully it's mixed use for more than just language.

https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-pre ... -languages

It's probably because a ton of the language classes were all taught in old main. I majored in Chinese and I think the only time I had a Chinese class outside of old main was CHIN 1020 my freshman year. I think it's great they finally are getting their own building.

trevordude · Post by **trevordude** » December 30th, 2024, 7:52 pm

FromLItoLogan wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 7:42 pm

trevordude wrote: ↑
December 30th, 2024, 7:39 pm
If the universities get some extra scrutiny every few years it's probably a good thing. Large organizations naturally get fat overtime.

I don't think university should just solely be career prep . However, I did scratch my head a bit when USU built a big new language building. I realize there was some donation behind it, but didn't make a ton of sense to me. Hopefully it's mixed use for more than just language.

https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-pre ... -languages
It's probably because a ton of the language classes were all taught in old main. I majored in Chinese and I think the only time I had a Chinese class outside of old main was CHIN 1020 my freshman year. I think it's great they finally are getting their own building.

Pretty sweet piece of real estate for a small graduating class. Lots of people get language minors i should include. USU is on to its 3rd business building.

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/view ... mmencement

USU78 · Post by **USU78** » December 30th, 2024, 7:57 pm

Foreign Language, ASL, ESL, And a whole lot of other programs used to be under the Department of Languages. They shared space in Old Main on the second floor.

Don't forget how many undergrads at USU spent time overseas, and want to be able to use their language skills learned abroad in pursuing studies and or career. In addition, all of those international students lacking sophisticated English skills, And the deaf tend to study advanced ASL. And the principal donor is right, it's important that we be able to learn about cultures other than our own, both far away and in the fringes of our own State.

ConnectedAggie · Post by **ConnectedAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 8:08 pm

I heard that the College of Natural Resources wastes a lot of money, so they certainly have things that can be cut from their budget that they wouldn't miss.

GordoAggie · Post by **GordoAggie** » December 30th, 2024, 9:16 pm

Mike Schultz, the current house speaker, has never attended a day of college but he knows all the ills.
Too woke. Too much dei. And he is still super pissed about the Palestinian protests.
He is gonna show them dad gum liberal academics!!!

3rdGenAggie · Post by **3rdGenAggie** » December 31st, 2024, 12:03 am

A university education is too expensive to have it really do anything other than prepare people to successfully provide for themselves and their families.

Knowing that Picasso painted that picture is great, but isn't really worth the thousands of dollars it costs to have a college professor teach you that.

StanfordAggie · Post by **StanfordAggie** » December 31st, 2024, 10:33 pm

I don't want to Sandbox this thread, but I find it fascinating how conservative politicians who think it is an unthinkable overreach/travesty when the government tells a private company that it can't dump pollution in the river think it is a good idea to micromanage a university. To be clear, I worked in higher education for a long time. I can see the legislature's motivations. At the university where I used to work, the number of students majoring in computer science has increased by a factor of 4 in the past decade or so, but there budget has remained basically flat. As a result, every computer science class is completely full, it's impossible to graduate with a computer science degree in less than 5-6 years, and they have started limiting the number of computer science majors. As a result, the university isn't training enough programmers to meet the demands of the job market. Meanwhile some humanities majors are dying off and their professors end up teaching 2 classes with 3 students each. It's not an efficient allocation of resources, and I can understand the desire to change that.

However, I have very serious doubts that politicians are going to allocate resources any more efficiently. If the Republicans in the legislature believe in free markets, why not let the free market decide how to allocate resources at a university? Tie funding levels for each department to the percentage of students who get a degree within six years and the percentage of students earning more than a high school graduate after graduation. And make it so that when a student signs a promissory note for a student loan, it shows them data on what percentage of students in their degree program graduate on time and earn more than a high school graduate. Also show them data on the median salary for graduates of the program. This would probably have to be done at the federal level, but all of the data I listed is already on the Internet published by the federal government. All they would need to do is make two websites talk to one another. If you give students information on what degrees will earn the most money, they will vote with their tuition dollars without politicians getting involved.

trevordude · Post by **trevordude** » January 1st, 2025, 12:58 am

StanfordAggie wrote: ↑
December 31st, 2024, 10:33 pm
I don't want to Sandbox this thread, but I find it fascinating how conservative politicians who think it is an unthinkable overreach/travesty when the government tells a private company that it can't dump pollution in the river think it is a good idea to micromanage a university. To be clear, I worked in higher education for a long time. I can see the legislature's motivations. At the university where I used to work, the number of students majoring in computer science has increased by a factor of 4 in the past decade or so, but there budget has remained basically flat. As a result, every computer science class is completely full, it's impossible to graduate with a computer science degree in less than 5-6 years, and they have started limiting the number of computer science majors. As a result, the university isn't training enough programmers to meet the demands of the job market. Meanwhile some humanities majors are dying off and their professors end up teaching 2 classes with 3 students each. It's not an efficient allocation of resources, and I can understand the desire to change that.

However, I have very serious doubts that politicians are going to allocate resources any more efficiently. If the Republicans in the legislature believe in free markets, why not let the free market decide how to allocate resources at a university? Tie funding levels for each department to the percentage of students who get a degree within six years and the percentage of students earning more than a high school graduate after graduation. And make it so that when a student signs a promissory note for a student loan, it shows them data on what percentage of students in their degree program graduate on time and earn more than a high school graduate. Also show them data on the median salary for graduates of the program. This would probably have to be done at the federal level, but all of the data I listed is already on the Internet published by the federal government. All they would need to do is make two websites talk to one another. If you give students information on what degrees will earn the most money, they will vote with their tuition dollars without politicians getting involved.

Rather than look at degrees offered and salaries, I hope they would look at University admin expenses. Offer what classes you will, but your payroll of state employees needs to make sense

jackattack · Post by **jackattack** » January 2nd, 2025, 8:59 am

StanfordAggie wrote: ↑
December 31st, 2024, 10:33 pm
I don't want to Sandbox this thread, but I find it fascinating how conservative politicians who think it is an unthinkable overreach/travesty when the government tells a private company that it can't dump pollution in the river think it is a good idea to micromanage a university. To be clear, I worked in higher education for a long time. I can see the legislature's motivations. At the university where I used to work, the number of students majoring in computer science has increased by a factor of 4 in the past decade or so, but there budget has remained basically flat. As a result, every computer science class is completely full, it's impossible to graduate with a computer science degree in less than 5-6 years, and they have started limiting the number of computer science majors. As a result, the university isn't training enough programmers to meet the demands of the job market. Meanwhile some humanities majors are dying off and their professors end up teaching 2 classes with 3 students each. It's not an efficient allocation of resources, and I can understand the desire to change that.

However, I have very serious doubts that politicians are going to allocate resources any more efficiently. If the Republicans in the legislature believe in free markets, why not let the free market decide how to allocate resources at a university? Tie funding levels for each department to the percentage of students who get a degree within six years and the percentage of students earning more than a high school graduate after graduation. And make it so that when a student signs a promissory note for a student loan, it shows them data on what percentage of students in their degree program graduate on time and earn more than a high school graduate. Also show them data on the median salary for graduates of the program. This would probably have to be done at the federal level, but all of the data I listed is already on the Internet published by the federal government. All they would need to do is make two websites talk to one another. If you give students information on what degrees will earn the most money, they will vote with their tuition dollars without politicians getting involved.

You’re making some assumptions here I don’t necessarily agree with. You’re assuming that 18-19 year old kids are rational. And that the decision to make money is a rational decision. Making the rational decision does not always make it a correct one. Nor is a rational decision the right decision in and of itself.

Take it from a current humanities student at USU, if you want; humanities, and the soft skills they teach, like thinking with nuance, are needed in the workplace. But humanities are no more important than any other educational discipline. In order for the sciences and humanities to be applied most effectively within the workplace, they should be studied interdisciplinarily.

In truth, the issues with higher education most likely cannot be narrowed down to only politics or administrative spending. There’s probably a myriad of factors. These problems are certainly way above my pay grade.

StanfordAggie · Post by **StanfordAggie** » January 2nd, 2025, 10:42 am

jackattack wrote: ↑
January 2nd, 2025, 8:59 am

StanfordAggie wrote: ↑
December 31st, 2024, 10:33 pm
I don't want to Sandbox this thread, but I find it fascinating how conservative politicians who think it is an unthinkable overreach/travesty when the government tells a private company that it can't dump pollution in the river think it is a good idea to micromanage a university. To be clear, I worked in higher education for a long time. I can see the legislature's motivations. At the university where I used to work, the number of students majoring in computer science has increased by a factor of 4 in the past decade or so, but there budget has remained basically flat. As a result, every computer science class is completely full, it's impossible to graduate with a computer science degree in less than 5-6 years, and they have started limiting the number of computer science majors. As a result, the university isn't training enough programmers to meet the demands of the job market. Meanwhile some humanities majors are dying off and their professors end up teaching 2 classes with 3 students each. It's not an efficient allocation of resources, and I can understand the desire to change that.

However, I have very serious doubts that politicians are going to allocate resources any more efficiently. If the Republicans in the legislature believe in free markets, why not let the free market decide how to allocate resources at a university? Tie funding levels for each department to the percentage of students who get a degree within six years and the percentage of students earning more than a high school graduate after graduation. And make it so that when a student signs a promissory note for a student loan, it shows them data on what percentage of students in their degree program graduate on time and earn more than a high school graduate. Also show them data on the median salary for graduates of the program. This would probably have to be done at the federal level, but all of the data I listed is already on the Internet published by the federal government. All they would need to do is make two websites talk to one another. If you give students information on what degrees will earn the most money, they will vote with their tuition dollars without politicians getting involved.
You’re making some assumptions here I don’t necessarily agree with. You’re assuming that 18-19 year old kids are rational. And that the decision to make money is a rational decision. Making the rational decision does not always make it a correct one. Nor is a rational decision the right decision in and of itself.

Take it from a current humanities student at USU, if you want; humanities, and the soft skills they teach, like thinking with nuance, are needed in the workplace. But humanities are no more important than any other educational discipline. In order for the sciences and humanities to be applied most effectively within the workplace, they should be studied interdisciplinarily.

In truth, the issues with higher education most likely cannot be narrowed down to only politics or administrative spending. There’s probably a myriad of factors. These problems are certainly way above my pay grade.

It depends on how you define "rational." If a person hates math and would be miserable doing math every day, I would say that it is a rational decision to major in a non-STEM field even if that means significantly lower lifetime earnings. And of course some people (not just 18-year-olds) will make stupid decisions with money even with the numbers spelled out in front of them. But I do think transparency about debt and expected earnings would fix a lot of the problems. If you look at the law schools in the U.S. in the past 10-15 years, that is an interesting case study. During that time, many students started to publicly complain that they took out enormous debt to attend law school and found that nobody wanted to hire them after graduation. It started a movement to force law schools to be more transparent about the debt their students accrue and what salaries students earn after graduation (https://app.lawhub.org/law-school-transparency). Since that web site was created, enrollment at lower-ranked law schools has plummeted, and many of the worst offenders have closed. Yes, some people will make bad decisions no matter what, but I think people are less likely to make bad decisions when all of the data is in front of them. And I guess I am enough of a conservative that I prefer a solution based on free markets rather than micromanagement by politicians.

And I am under no delusion that my proposal would fix all problems in higher education. But I think it would help a lot. More importantly, the cost would be almost zero. All the federal government would need to do is make it so that the https://studentaid.gov/ pulls some numbers from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ when a student uses the first website to sign a promissory note for a federal student loan. My next proposed reform would be to cut off federal aid (both loans and grants) to universities who have too many alumni who are not repaying their loans. That would be a fantastic way to force the poor performers to shut down (and encourage them to keep costs affordable in the process). But that would definitely put us into Sandbox territory.

LarryTheAggie · Post by **LarryTheAggie** » January 2nd, 2025, 11:31 am

StanfordAggie wrote: ↑
January 2nd, 2025, 10:42 am

jackattack wrote: ↑
January 2nd, 2025, 8:59 am

StanfordAggie wrote: ↑
December 31st, 2024, 10:33 pm
I don't want to Sandbox this thread, but I find it fascinating how conservative politicians who think it is an unthinkable overreach/travesty when the government tells a private company that it can't dump pollution in the river think it is a good idea to micromanage a university. To be clear, I worked in higher education for a long time. I can see the legislature's motivations. At the university where I used to work, the number of students majoring in computer science has increased by a factor of 4 in the past decade or so, but there budget has remained basically flat. As a result, every computer science class is completely full, it's impossible to graduate with a computer science degree in less than 5-6 years, and they have started limiting the number of computer science majors. As a result, the university isn't training enough programmers to meet the demands of the job market. Meanwhile some humanities majors are dying off and their professors end up teaching 2 classes with 3 students each. It's not an efficient allocation of resources, and I can understand the desire to change that.

However, I have very serious doubts that politicians are going to allocate resources any more efficiently. If the Republicans in the legislature believe in free markets, why not let the free market decide how to allocate resources at a university? Tie funding levels for each department to the percentage of students who get a degree within six years and the percentage of students earning more than a high school graduate after graduation. And make it so that when a student signs a promissory note for a student loan, it shows them data on what percentage of students in their degree program graduate on time and earn more than a high school graduate. Also show them data on the median salary for graduates of the program. This would probably have to be done at the federal level, but all of the data I listed is already on the Internet published by the federal government. All they would need to do is make two websites talk to one another. If you give students information on what degrees will earn the most money, they will vote with their tuition dollars without politicians getting involved.
You’re making some assumptions here I don’t necessarily agree with. You’re assuming that 18-19 year old kids are rational. And that the decision to make money is a rational decision. Making the rational decision does not always make it a correct one. Nor is a rational decision the right decision in and of itself.

Take it from a current humanities student at USU, if you want; humanities, and the soft skills they teach, like thinking with nuance, are needed in the workplace. But humanities are no more important than any other educational discipline. In order for the sciences and humanities to be applied most effectively within the workplace, they should be studied interdisciplinarily.

In truth, the issues with higher education most likely cannot be narrowed down to only politics or administrative spending. There’s probably a myriad of factors. These problems are certainly way above my pay grade.
It depends on how you define "rational." If a person hates math and would be miserable doing math every day, I would say that it is a rational decision to major in a non-STEM field even if that means significantly lower lifetime earnings. And of course some people (not just 18-year-olds) will make stupid decisions with money even with the numbers spelled out in front of them. But I do think transparency about debt and expected earnings would fix a lot of the problems. If you look at the law schools in the U.S. in the past 10-15 years, that is an interesting case study. During that time, many students started to publicly complain that they took out enormous debt to attend law school and found that nobody wanted to hire them after graduation. It started a movement to force law schools to be more transparent about the debt their students accrue and what salaries students earn after graduation (https://app.lawhub.org/law-school-transparency). Since that web site was created, enrollment at lower-ranked law schools has plummeted, and many of the worst offenders have closed. Yes, some people will make bad decisions no matter what, but I think people are less likely to make bad decisions when all of the data is in front of them. And I guess I am enough of a conservative that I prefer a solution based on free markets rather than micromanagement by politicians.

And I am under no delusion that my proposal would fix all problems in higher education. But I think it would help a lot. More importantly, the cost would be almost zero. All the federal government would need to do is make it so that the https://studentaid.gov/ pulls some numbers from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ when a student uses the first website to sign a promissory note for a federal student loan. My next proposed reform would be to cut off federal aid (both loans and grants) to universities who have too many alumni who are not repaying their loans. That would be a fantastic way to force the poor performers to shut down (and encourage them to keep costs affordable in the process). But that would definitely put us into Sandbox territory.

Side note.

I hated math until my sophomore year at Utah State. Now I am a professor in a very math heavy field. (Just one reason why pushing freshman into declaring majors is stupid.)

Carry on.

NVAggie · Post by **NVAggie** » January 2nd, 2025, 11:44 am

I would bet that the government involvement in higher education, and its funding, has also contributed to the inflated cost.

StanfordAggie · Post by **StanfordAggie** » January 2nd, 2025, 2:45 pm

NVAggie wrote: ↑
January 2nd, 2025, 11:44 am
I would bet that the government involvement in higher education, and its funding, has also contributed to the inflated cost.

Of course. When the government provides unlimited amounts of student loan money for anyone pursuing a degree, that obviously allows universities to charge more than they otherwise would. And to be clear, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. If it were not for Pell Grants and government-subsidized student loans, it would be very difficult or impossible for many low-income students to attend college. And in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a good-paying job without a college degree, I can see a strong argument for the government making a college education more accessible. But this contributes to rising tuition costs and student debt burdens.

That's why I think the best (or at least simplest) solution in the near term is complete transparency about total costs and expected outcomes and accountability for universities that consistently leave students with high debt and poor job prospects. Colleges will no longer be able to raise tuition indefinitely while offering degrees that don't help you get a job if students start voting with their wallets and/or colleges have to worry about getting shut down if too many alumni aren't paying their loans.

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