By Jon Burkart (PO ‘24)
In 2008, the Great Recession struck. And in its wake, upwards of 20 states cut public spending: Ohio was one of them.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. And while the future remains uncertain, one thing is clear: austerity is returning. In some states, it has already made a return. On May 6, 2020, just months into the pandemic, Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine announced that the state would cut its higher education budget by roughly $110 million in the proceeding two months. And as the pandemic raged on, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted had few words of consolation for cash-bleeding public universities, stating “you can never subsidize something enough to escape the laws of economics.”
The laws that govern economics may very well be culpable for the dismal state of Ohio’s public universities. But so are the laws that govern the State of Ohio.
Perilous Precursors
This wave of austerity in Ohio is not the result of one factor. It must be placed in the context of myriad interrelated issues that transcend state lines. Take the decline in manufacturing jobs and the rise of the “Rust Belt” in the Midwest. The US population has slowly moved from the Midwest and Northeast and to economic opportunity in the South and Southwest. A 2019 report from the United States Census Bureau found the South experienced a net population gain of around 512,000 residents and has experienced positive net migration almost every year since 1981. The declining population in the Midwest is only compounded by a nationwide decline in fertility rates that resulted from the economic downturn of 2008.
Even more, a large number of higher education institutions in the Rust Belt are “regional universities.” These universities are usually classified by awarding a majority of degrees in non-liberal arts majors, and by primarily catering to in-state students. But after years of negative net migration perpetuated by disinvestment, most Rust Belt states have witnessed a perpetually-declining college-aged population. A Brookings Institution report found that since 2011, enrollment at regional universities has declined by around 10%. Regional universities’ primary clientele have been slowly siphoned away, to their detriment.
On top of all of this are the continuing effects of the 2008 economic downturn. Before 2008, state funding had outpaced federal funding of higher education for nearly 20 years. However, 2010 saw the federal government overtake state funding as the largest source of funding according to a 2015 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. As the report continues, state funding is primarily for the operation of universities (faculty, staff, etc.), while federal funding largely provides financial assistance to students. Public universities accounted for decreased state funding by cutting academic programs and raising tuition. Their economic survival was now linked directly to consistent enrollment; consistent “customers.”
State of the State
Demographic shifts, regional universities, and the 2008 financial crisis are not unique to Ohio. But the combination of legislative oddities and general trends is. For example, a few provisions of Ohio’s Revised Code have historically been construed so as to mandate the Governor to have a “balanced budget.” Such was the rationale Governor DeWine provided when justifying his impending cuts to Ohio’s higher education budget. Inevitably tied to austerity, Ohio’s public universities are even more reliant on tuition costs. A report from the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities found that between 2008 and 2015, Ohio’s tuition costs increased on-average $523; during this same period, per-pupil funding decreased by 15%.
To make matters worse, most of Ohio’s 14 public universities and all of their respective regional campuses, are regional universities. They have long relied on a working-class population that is slowly vanishing before their very eyes. Despite being the third-biggest state by number of manufacturing jobs, Ohio had lost nearly half of its peak manufacturing jobs by 2016. Years of deindustrialization and automation have invariably led to a diminished labor market in the Rust Belt. This lack of economic opportunities has driven families, and their college-aged children, away. Ohio’s many regional universities are reliant on a constantly-declining demographic.
A perfect case study in these trends is Ohio University (O.U.), a regional university of more than 22,000 students in rural Athens, Ohio. In the 1978-79 academic school year, tuition for in-state students at O.U. was $1,056 ($4,259 adjusted for inflation); now, the guaranteed rate for tuition alone is more than $12,000. With a declining regional population and increased reliance on tuition, O.U. must actually charge more than the nearby flagship Ohio State University. In essence, this is an inversion of the role of regional universities — they have long educated underserved lower-income regional populations, but in the case of O.U., they may be more expensive. Needless to say, COVID-19 has only complicated the path forward for O.U., and the broader public university system in Ohio.
“With God, all things are possible.”
…Ohio’s state motto echoes the state’s tepid approach to this crisis: it seems legislators are waiting for an act of divine intervention to save their public universities. Still, all hope should not be abandoned. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way we work, and while the “death of the city” seems unlikely, so too does the death of working from home. With the ability to work from anywhere, the affordable Rust Belt will be that much more appealing for millennials. Even before the pandemic, analysts found a significant trend of millennials moving to states like Ohio and Michigan. They are largely driven by affordability, the ability to work from home, and the prospect of “planting down roots.” The latter not only fosters millennials’ families; most importantly, familial roots can reinvigorate regional populations and the universities that serve them.
Still, one caveat remains: another large driver of this Rust Belt resurgence is educational opportunities. Antoine van Agtmael, a trustee at the Brookings Institution, elaborates, “St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Baltimore… are making a comeback because their universities were able to remain world-class centers of research.” This presents a Catch-22. The increase in population that may save regional universities is only as strong as the regional universities themselves, which as it currently stands are only as strong as the number of students that are paying tuition. So what are universities like O.U. to do? Ultimately, they must learn from how other sectors have adapted to the ongoing pandemic.
Just as many businesses have cut overhead costs, like ending inflexible leases on expensive offices in the city, universities should focus their limited funds on remote education. After all, the Harvard Business Review describes that universities have long lagged behind other sectors in technological investment. With a massive and expensive shift to remote education this past year, the reality is even clearer: online learning is here to stay. Regional universities should embrace this as an opportunity to reach populations that may be farther from their typical regional clientele. If they can meet students wherever they’re located, they need not rely so heavily on many of the non-academic pursuits, like sports and flashy new buildings, that are supposed to draw students in. These pursuits, one Ohio University professor argues, siphon too much money from academics, an impact made clear by O.U’s plummeting academic rankings.
Ohio’s universities have been brought to their knees by the Covid-19 pandemic. Now is an opportunity for them to both learn and adapt. For the nearly 450,000 students served by Ohio’s regional public universities, the stakes could not be higher.
