Regents discuss woes with 2-year programs

The Montana University System does a reasonably good job of attracting the state’s high school students to its four-year campuses, but needs to do a better job getting the word out on two-year degrees, regents and university administrators told local business and political leaders Friday morning.

By MARY PICKETT
Of The Gazette Staff

Members of the Board of Regents talked over breakfast with 25 Billings leaders on the last day of the regents’ three-day meeting at Montana State University-Billings.

Bruce Brodie, manager of the ExxonMobil refinery in Billings, said the percentage of Montana high school seniors going on to college seemed low to him and wondered what the University System is doing to get secondary students excited about college.

Montana exceeds national and regional averages for students going for four-year degrees, although those rates are beginning to decline, Brodie was told.

The state also lags in the number of students going into two-year programs.

The University System is working to better market two-year, post-secondary education, Regent Mark Semmens of Great Falls said.

All campuses have outreach and recruitment programs to draw high school students, said University of Montana President George Dennison, who added that about half of all Montana high school graduates go on to college and 35 percent of those students go to out-of-state colleges and universities.

One successful recruitment tool for UM has been a Trivial Pursuit-style competition where high school students vie for scholarships, he said.

Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy asked regents how they would work with the next Legislature to address increasing tuition costs for Montana students.

Regents and the office of the commissioner of higher education are trying to change the way university budgets are put together, said Regent John Mercer of Polson, who also serves on a regents’ budget committee.

Under the current process, the University System, governor’s office and Legislature craft budgets relatively independently of each other, and no one knows what the result will be.

Regents now are trying to change the process so all parties talk long before the Legislature meets, and the University System builds its budget in cooperation with the governor’s office and legislators, Mercer said.

The rising cost of college is a concern for everyone, said Sheila Stearns, commissioner of higher education. However, keeping tuition artificially low while costs rise can backfire, resulting in extreme tuition spikes.

Iowa kept a lid on tuition for several years and then was forced to increase it 18 to 20 percent each year for four years, Stearns said.

Responding to another question from Kennedy about funding for the Southern Agriculture Research Station at Huntley, Gamble said MSU is raising private money to match a $1 million one-time pledge from the Legislature to go toward improving facilities at experiment stations, including the one at Huntley.

Taylor Brown, president of the Northern Broadcasting System, said he is working on raising private funds for a new, state-of-the-art animal science building at MSU to replace a facility that is nearly 100 years old.

Billings businessman Bernie Harrington gave MSU-Billings Chancellor Ron Sexton and his administration an "A" for what they have accomplished on the campus with a limited amount of money. The Billings community also has made substantial contributions, he said.

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