Students can expect a rise in tuition costs and new buildings on campus if Gov. Steve Beshear’s budget is approved by state legislators.
Beshear discussed harsh cuts to Kentucky’s biennial budget to allocate funds for K-12 education and other government institutions. Among those cuts, higher education is at the top of the list.
“(The budget) exempts student financial aid from the 5 percent cuts, but it reduces operating funds for our universities and our two-year community and technical college system, although it holds that reduction to 2.5 percent,” Beshear said. “Look, I am painfully aware that with this reduction, our colleges and universities will have undergone cumulative cuts of 17 percent during this historic recession.”
“This was one of the most difficult choices made in this budget, because higher education deserves more support, not less.”
Previously, the state of Kentucky allocated $48 million to Murray State’s budget. The 2014-16 budget calls for a 2.5 percent cut to that allocation, meaning Murray State would receive $46.8 million from the state.
Last year, Interim President Tim Miller said the total University budget stood at approximately $157 million.
In September, the state mandated that the University pay $1.7 million during the 2014-15 fiscal year in annual pension contributions. Beshear’s budget proposal cuts the mandate in half and would require Murray State to pay approximately $850,000 instead.
Beshear proposed $520.3 million in general fund supported bonds and $704 million in agency bonds for state universities and their infrastructures.
Beshear did approve a proposal for a new engineering and physics building at Murray State. In November, Miller said this project was the No. 1 capital construction priority in the list of proposals. Miller said the engineering and physics building will cost nearly $32 million to complete.
Another $32 million has been allocated in Beshear’s budget proposal to construct a new Breathitt Veterinary Center. This proposal has appeared on the list of potential construction projects at the University for several years.
Murray State will also receive $1.1 million as part of the Kentucky Bucks for Brains program, where the state matches contributions from donors to the University.
Miller said the state will give $40 million to the larger universities in the state, the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, to split for Bucks for Brains. Murray State and other smaller institutions will only receive $10 million collectively for that program.
Among the list of proposals for the state budget was the replacement of Franklin Residential College, something Miller said Murray State will have to pay for now. That project is estimated to cost approximately $29 million and will begin after Hester Residential College’s completion.
Miller said administration will fight hard to prevent the proposed budget cuts at the University.
“We appreciate these projects, but if we cut funds like this it hurts people,” Miller said. “We’ll have to raise tuition.”
In a commentary to the Lexington Herald-Leader, members of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education and university presidents from the state discussed the need for Kentucky to recommit to higher education.
“Since the start of the recession in 2008, state funding per student (adjusted for inflation) at our public colleges and universities has declined over 30 percent,” the commentary stated. “State support for our public colleges and universities, in inflation-adjusted dollars, is lower today than it was nearly two decades ago in 1997.”
Story by Lexy Gross, Editor-in-Chief.