Nevada Wonders If a New State College Is Worth the Cost
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TIMELINE: A Troubled Beginning
TABLE: In Need of Another College?
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By MICHAEL ARNONE
Henderson, Nev.
Nevada State College should be easy to find. Take the Nevada State College exit off State Highway 93, then turn onto Nevada State Drive. But nothing jumps out on that dusty road to indicate that a college exists here: no grassy quads, no bell tower, no stadium. The only landmark, other than a Texaco station, is a squat, nearly windowless building, dwarfed by the rugged hills behind it.
That beige box is Nevada State College, a far cry from the original idea for a new public institution in the state. That plan envisioned a college with multiple schools, dormitories, and a central park with tree-lined sidewalks radiating like spokes across landscaped grounds.
Instead, visitors enter through the loading dock of a former vitamin factory that Nevada State calls home. Sheets of drywall and unassembled office furniture are stacked in a cavernous main room. The college is erecting walls, carving out classrooms and offices in the space. In an adjacent common area, a few students chat around glass-topped patio tables. Green umbrellas shade them from the fluorescent light.
Spartan accommodations, though, have been the least of Nevada State's worries. The college is lucky to still be around.
Created in 1999, Nevada State has already encountered more controversy than many other institutions ever see. Its first president, Richard L. Moore, resigned in 2001 after an investigation by the state's attorney general found that he had failed to put more than $1-million in purchases out for competitive bids when he was president of the Community College of Southern Nevada. The investigation also found that he had turned a blind eye to nepotism by a vice president who hired and promoted his own father-in-law after accompanying Mr. Moore to Nevada State.
Nevada State's problems continued. The state Legislature initially was so divided on the virtues of the new college that it withheld operating funds the first year. Until recently, legislators, along with editorials in local newspapers, routinely excoriated the college and called for its demise. They portrayed its supporters as pandering to the pork-barrel political ambitions of the city of Henderson, 10 miles southeast of the bright lights of Las Vegas.
In the past year, though, and particularly in the past four months, Nevada State's fortunes have finally begun to improve. In September 2002 the college hired a new president known for turning a small Utah community college into a flourishing four-year institution. Last June Nevada State was included as a line item in the state budget for 2003-5. In August an anonymous donor gave $1-million to help the college build its first new facility, which will contain much-needed classrooms.
Indeed, some critics are warily supporting the college, for now.
Nevada State's supporters are cautiously relieved. "It is no longer at risk of disappearing," says Jane A. Nichols, chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada, of which Nevada State is a part. But the tiny college, which has enrolled only 531 students this year, still faces big challenges on its way to serving an estimated 25,000 students 20 years from now.
Population Explosion
Traditionally dominated by the low-skill, high-wage gambling and mining industries, Nevada has never had a well-developed system of higher education. Before the creation of Nevada State, only the University of Nevada campuses at Las Vegas and Reno, along with four community colleges, served the population.
But the state's population is booming. It has grown by more than 930,000 people, or 78 percent, in the past 12 years, and the deluge of newcomers shows no signs of abating. State officials say they must increase the number of college graduates or risk losing their competitiveness in an economy dependent on college-educated workers.
Nevada State was created as part of a master plan to meet that demand. Higher-education officials see the University of Nevada at Las Vegas as the state's research institution. Students with subpar grades and those seeking bachelor's degrees that could serve the state's pressing needs, like teaching and nursing, would be encouraged to attend Nevada State.
The new college's backers argued that it would save the state millions of dollars in the long run because it would spend less on undergraduate programs than would the universities at Las Vegas and Reno. Critics of the master plan said allowing the community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees would be even cheaper.
But Nevada State officials face a local culture that has not historically put a lot of resources into higher education. The state also has one of the lowest college-going rates in the country: Only 22.3 percent of Nevada's 18- to 24-year-olds go to college, compared with 34 percent nationwide.
One of the reasons that Nevada has a low college enrollment is that its economy is so specialized. Gambling and mining have paid residents well even if they lacked a college degree. High-school graduates --or dropouts --can make good money parking cars at the casinos. And because revenues from gambling, gold and other mining operations, and oil production pay for most state services, Nevadans are not used to paying a lot in state taxes.
But as the state's population continues to expand, says Ms. Nichols, the university-system chancellor, its two main industries cannot cover the costs of that growth or employ all of the newcomers. Diversifying the state's economy requires more college-educated workers, whom, presumably, Nevada State would produce. Ms. Nichols and other officials attribute the public rancor over Nevada State partly to residents who have a hard time adjusting to the idea that they need to go to college to get a good job.
"Higher education is a tough sell in Nevada," says Kerry D. Romesburg, president of Nevada State. "How do you compete with making $40,000 a year parking cars?"
Many Nevadans "did not think this college was necessary," says Stavros S. Anthony, chairman of the state's Board of Regents. "They did not think it was going to be fiscally responsible, that there would be the demand. But that's not the case. The demand is going to be there."
National experts agree. "The demographic rationale for this college is there," says Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonprofit research group. He and many other higher-education policy experts say Nevada is doing the right thing by building a new public institution, although some add that the argument holds only because the state's established higher-education system is too small to accommodate the growth. States with more-developed systems, they say, would be better off adapting their existing infrastructures.
"There's a whole wave of thinking right now that we've already done our institution-building in this country," says Carl R. Krueger, an assistant policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit research group that tracks and helps develop education policy. "We don't need more buildings. We need to use our systems better."
The Most B.A.'s for the Buck
But is a new state institution the most cost-effective way for Nevada to award more bachelor's degrees to its booming population?
Nevada higher-education officials say it is. Under the formula that determines how much money public colleges receive from the Legislature, the four-year research university is the most expensive way to educate residents. Salaries, operating costs, and tuition are higher there than at the community colleges. At Las Vegas, each professor teaches only 6 courses a year; at the community colleges, each professor teaches 10. When the formula is applied to Nevada State, in 2005, its professors will be expected to teach 8 courses a year.
"From an economic model, it just makes sense to have a middle tier," Mr. Romesburg says. As president of Utah Valley State College, he saved the state $14-million over five years, he says, by following the strategy he hopes to employ at Nevada State. The new college will provide similar savings, he predicts, once it starts enrolling the thousands of students it is intended to serve.
While community colleges may be even cheaper, if they begin offering bachelor's programs, as critics of Nevada State have urged, their professors would need more preparation time and so would teach fewer courses, and costs would rise. Such a transition would also change the mission of the community colleges, some state and college officials fear.
Opponents of Nevada State argued for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the Community College of Southern Nevada to expand their capacity. But Raymond W. Alden, UNLV's provost, says his institution is nearing its maximum enrollment and has used up the space on its campus. The high price of real estate and the poor economy make it hard to expand the campus, hire more people, or enroll more students. The university, though, is expected to open a satellite campus in the city by next summer.
Expansion is still possible at the Community College of Southern Nevada, where each of its three campuses has land available for building. Given that flexibility, it should have been viewed as the best option for educating more students, says State Sen. Barbara K. Cegavske, a Republican from Las Vegas, who remains Nevada State's chief opponent. "Why are we taking students from existing colleges and putting them on another campus?" she asks.
Sonya L. Corrick enrolled in Nevada State this fall to pursue a career in nursing, after trying both UNLV and Southern Nevada. "I worked my butt off getting all my pre-reqs done" by this fall at the community college, she says, only to learn that its associate-degree program in nursing was full for this term, and perhaps for the spring as well. She then enrolled in the nursing program at Las Vegas, where, she says, she was treated like "a number."
When she looked into Nevada State, Ms. Corrick found that it would accept her credits. Even better, she could graduate with a bachelor's degree in nursing in 2005. She immediately enrolled.
But she is one of only a few students to do so. Looking at Nevada State's tiny enrollment --only 177 students last year, and 531 this year --and millions of dollars in start-up costs, Senator Cegavske says the college is a costly white elephant.
Whether Nevada State --she derisively calls it "Henderson State" --will be cheaper in the long run does not matter, she says, since right now it provides the most expensive education in the state. The young college's start-up costs and low enrollment put the cost of educating each of its students at $11,423, compared with $9,860 at UNLV and $5,374 at the community colleges.
Senator Cegavske would like the Community College of Southern Nevada, besides offering bachelor's degrees, to help high schools upgrade their facilities so that the college could use them at night. But those plans have stalled, she says, because the money for them has instead gone to Nevada State.
Las Vegas has offered weekday courses at the community college that can be put toward bachelor's degrees, but it has had trouble filling them because most of the students at the two-year college are part-timers, says Mr. Alden, UNLV's provost. Nevada State is a better choice for them, he says, because it caters more to a nontraditional population than Las Vegas does.
Gaining Support
While it may be out of the crosshairs, Nevada State faces numerous challenges. Enrollment is still low and will continue to be so for several years, says Mr. Romesburg, the college's president. That is despite the threefold increase from 2002 to 2003.
Right now, though, students and faculty members alike say they like Nevada State's tightknit, small-college atmosphere. Everyone is on a first-name basis with one another --even Mr. Romesburg, whom students greet with "Hey, Kerry!" when they pass him on the staircase.
Money continues to be a problem, as does classroom space. The college will grow out of the old factory by next year, Mr. Romesburg says, and he has to hustle to find $9-million in private money by July 2005. If he doesn't, the $13-million that the state has set aside for the college to construct its first new building will be withdrawn.
He and other state leaders are confident that he will. Statewide support for Nevada State has increased, in large part because Mr. Romesburg did not attract the political animosity that had plagued Mr. Moore, the college's first president. Everyone agrees that like it or not, Nevada State is here to stay.
The question facing the college now --and looming like the jagged peaks behind it --is whether it can grow big enough, fast enough, for the state to educate its people without breaking the bank.
December 1999: / State Legislature creates Nevada State College.
March 2001: / Nevada attorney general's office releases results of investigation of Nevada State College's president, Richard L. Moore. It finds, among other things, that he paid higher-education consultants $1,000 a day to help design the new college. The investigation also finds that Orlando Sandoval, a vice president of the Community College of Southern Nevada, hired his own father-in-law and quickly promoted him while Mr. Moore was president there. Nevada State College abandons its original planned location, a defunct chemical-processing facility because the site is too contaminated to use.
June 2001: / Legislature includes $3.8-million for Nevada State, but to be paid only in the second year of the two-year state budget. The college survives the first year on about $2.1-million that its foundation raises from private sources.
February 2002: / Amid criticism, Mr. Moore resigns as president, but stays on as a professor of business.
September 2002: / Nevada State opens its doors in a former vitamin factory, with only 177 students, far below the roughly 750 that officials had originally planned. Two weeks later, Kerry D. Romesburg, former president of Utah Valley State College, starts as the new president.