The way we see it: Our own private Boise State

Change abounds in the United States. It’s a concept so ubiquitous there isn’t a politician alive who cannot help but let the word burp from his or her lips.

Change is a word kicked around more than a mud-soaked hackey sac at a hippy convention. It’s a pop culture, kitsch-drenched fumble of a word at this point.

But what happens when Boise State University President Bob Kustra invokes “change?” In his State of the University Address Wednesday, Kustra hinted that change could mean Boise State becoming a private university.

The Arbiter supports the idea of a privately owned and operated Boise State. Because of budget constraints and bureaucratic quagmires, Kustra’s motivation to cut the state from the university’s financial endeavors is simple to understand.

According to Kustra, for the 2010 fiscal year, Idaho finished a lethargic 15 percent below predictions for revenue generated. The state’s struggles to assist higher education were compounded by a 70 percent reduction in federal stimulus funds. As a result, Boise State suffered reductions of $28.9 million over the past two fiscal years in total.

“It may take a leap of faith to believe that our destiny could be in our hands when the budget challenges we face are due to circumstances and decisions largely beyond our control — namely, significant cutbacks in funding by state government,” Kustra said in his speech.

If Boise State were to become a private university — and thereby eliminate the state’s involvement — making determinations for the budget could be made significantly more simple. Without waving predictions and grim financial forecasts, Boise State’s administration could move more nimbly around budget problems given that all of the information it needs could be addressed internally.

“The old business model is well known to all of us,” Kustra said. “Everyone in this room educated at a public university benefited from the priority that state governments placed on funding public universities and that allowed tuition to remain low for over a century. That model worked fine until funding for corrections, Medicaid and elementary education and secondary education overwhelmed state governments in recent years and state revenues took a dive.”

Privatization of the university could also mean freedom from state bureaucratic headaches. For the university to purchase equipment for research, it’s required to mull through stacks of paperwork and endure a system that moves more slowly than molasses.

“Even though it may not appear to be cost savings, our recent legislative victory in seeking statutory authorization to process our own purchasing orders for scientific instrumentation will save our researchers significant time and eliminate the hassle of reporting to two purchasing departments,” Kustra said.

Self-reliance toward purchasing could be just one step in Boise State’s transition from a public university to a private university. Another benefit of privatization allows Boise State to determine its own curriculum and what colleges to fund. Currently, Boise State doesn’t have a law school, medical school or journalism school. Part of the reason why these colleges are not present is because other Idaho universities already offer education in these fields.

The result is a university that doesn’t produce lawyers despite being within a few miles of the state court house. The same thing applies to having a university that can’t produce doctors even though it’s located in the state’s most densely populated area.

In order for Boise State to continue to progress and to potentially become “the metropolitan research university of distinction” it seeks to be, changes will be necessary. For Kustra, change might not be just a catch phrase to plug in to his speech. Privatization looks to be a coherent, viable opportunity to change that could yield positive benefits.

“The way we see it” is based on the majority opinions of The Arbiter editorial board. Members of the board are Bob Beers, editor in chief; Kirk Bell, managing editor; Josh Gamble, online editor; Haley Robinson, opinion editor; Andrew Ford, news editor; Rebecca De Leon, culture editor; and Gray Battson, video editor.

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Posted by Arbiter Staff on Aug 23 2010. Filed under Opinion, Sub Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.