Governors In Kentucky, Iowa, Arkansas Call For Higher Education Funding Increases

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A week that began with California Gavin Newsom proposing a historic, multi-year budget increase for California higher education has continued with governors in several other states releasing budget plans that include recommended hikes for their state colleges and universities.

The increases were not unexpected, given the very positive revenue picture in many states, several of which are enjoying record surpluses. And while some of the proposed hikes were not as large as higher education leaders had hoped, they still represent a welcome recovery in public funding for institutions that just a year ago were worried about their financial health, and in some cases, their survival.

Kentucky

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s fiscal year 2022-23 budget calls for a higher education funding increase of about 12%, which would be the largest increase in decades for public institutions in that state and help stem the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars that the state has cut from those schools over the past several years.

Beshear’s budget would add:

• $67.5 million in fiscal year 2022-23 and $90 million in fiscal year 2024 to institutions’ base budgets, amounting to a nearly 12% increase over the two years.
• $60 million in bond funds for Kentucky’s popular “Bucks for Brains” program, which funds research at the four-year universities. That $60 million is to be matched dollar-for-dollar with private donations and then put into individual endowments that provide a perpetual source of funding for selected faculty, graduate students and research programs.
• $500 million to pay down the debt on deferred maintenance for the state’s nine postsecondary institutions. Each university, if its fiscal capacity allows, will be expected to match each General Fund dollar with 50 cents, bringing the potential investment in asset preservation to $750 million.
• millions in additional funding for existing and new state financial aid programs.

Iowa

In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds has proposed a 2.5% increase for the state’s three public universities – the University of Iowa, Iowas State University and the University of Northern Iowa.

The universities had requested a $22 million increase, but Reynolds’ budget recommendation provides only about $14.8 million more than last year. Her proposal will be disappointing because Iowa’s public universities have received flat or lower state appropriations for several years, and many observers had thought the state’s current fiscal health might lead to a bigger increment.

Arkansas

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has proposed a general revenue increase of $12.9 million for that state’s colleges and universities, brining their total appropriations to $775.6 million.

The budget for the four-year colleges would increase by about $12.2 million to $624.3 million in fiscal year 2022-23. The budget for Arkansas’ two-year colleges would increase by $813,501 to $119.1 million. Technical colleges in Arkansas would see a $129,805 decline under Hutchinson’s proposal.

Those increases are part of an overall state budget of about $6 billion for the upcoming year, representing an increase of approximately 3.3%. Hutchinson, whose time in office ends next year because of term limits, called the increase “higher than I prefer, but the needs of our state and our healthy financial position support this increase.”

Governors in dozens of other states will be releasing their budget recommendations over the next few weeks.