Posted on Wed, Nov. 04, 2009

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Roundtable illuminating, frustrating

Put suppliers and potential buyers in a room for an hour anytime, and the talk is guaranteed to be illuminating. Do it at a time when expectations far exceed resources, and frustration will follow, too.

All of that was the case with Tuesday's Business and Industry Roundtable hosted by the Kansas Board of Regents at Wichita Area Technical College, where members of the business community met with legislators and regents officials to get an overview of higher education's present and a sense of the business community's expectations for the future.

It was no surprise that the talk quickly went from readying Kansans for jobs to readying them for college such as through tougher admissions standards — something the regents are exploring.

As one participant observed, a key partner in the challenge, K-12 public education, was unrepresented in the room (though USD 259 superintendent John Allison was invited).

Not that the production of a state's work force begins in kindergarten.

A state lawmaker brought up how poverty affects learning and how investment in early childhood education pays off in later student achievement.

And not all job skills are technical.

"I would love to have engineers who can communicate," offered one aircraft company representative.

The discussion spoke to the need for higher education to be more flexible and responsive to the state's work-force needs — such as how the state has mobilized to expand its capacity to train more nurses.

The need for top-quality technical training was clear, too — though the state still hasn't figured out how to pay for that training, as evidenced by the budget woes at the Wichita Area Technical College.

Regents president and CEO Reginald Robinson and regents chairwoman Jill Docking took pains to say it wasn't a time to whine about funding, but the state's shrinking role in higher education funding could not be set aside.

Chart after chart confirmed that the state's regents system is being asked to do more with less help from Topeka: As of Gov. Mark Parkinson's July budget cuts, higher education's funding for fiscal 2010 is at $753 million, comparable to the level in 2006. Enrollment is up 13 percent systemwide since 1988, yet public funding is down 20 percent. During that period, tuition as a percentage of higher-ed funding has risen from 16 to 26 percent, while state funding has slid from 47 to 27 percent.

It's a welcome step for the Board of Regents to be reaching out to its business stakeholders in 12 such meetings all over the state.

"This whole conversation ought to make you optimistic," Docking told participants when it was over.

But it also ought to make all Kansans question whether the bond between business and higher education can and should be stronger — and at what fair cost to taxpayers.

— For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

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