Dumbing down Missouri
subscribeSt. Louis Post-Dispatch
If some malevolent power were setting out to undermine the future well-being of Missourians, it might start by cutting money for state colleges.
Study after study has demonstrated direct links between the economic prosperity of a state's people and the educational opportunities available to them. When attending public universities becomes too expensive, fewer kids can afford to do so. When states starve their public universities of resources, good professors leave, classes become overcrowded and students wind up with mediocre educations.
In Missouri, no outside malevolent force has been required to achieve these results. Successive Missouri administrations and legislatures have managed to inflict the damage just fine.
The University of Missouri system's flagship campus in Columbia placed 91st among large universities on the widely distributed annual quality rankings of U.S. News & World Report. The University of Illinois ranked 38.
In average salaries for professors, Mizzou ranks 32 out of 33 among the large state research universities that belong to the Association of American Universities.
On the cost side, it now takes about $19,000 a year to attend Mizzou in Columbia, including tuition and living expenses. A 2006 report by then-state auditor Claire McCaskill found that tuition for four-year public colleges in Missouri was higher than in any other nearby state except Illinois.
In its annual report card, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave Missouri an F in affordability. According to its figures, an average middle-class family would have to spend 22 percent of its income to keep one student in a Missouri public college. Most families don't have that to spare.
It's been a long time since Missouri was generous in its support of the state college system, but state government budget crises over the last decade led to deep cuts in appropriations for operating and capital funds for higher education. The slashing got serious during the tenure of Democratic Gov. Bob Holden, and the higher-education budgets of his successor, Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, have barely kept pace with inflation.