By Laurie Au
Senior staff writer
For the past 30 years, the state has given millions of taxpayers’ dollars to private universities annually – a fact that seems ironic to university administators who are constantly battling for more state funding.
Maryland institutions are examples of the shift that public universities are becoming more privatized while private schools are becoming more like public ones according to their funding models. Though the state of Maryland has given money to private institutions for more than 30 years, more states across the U.S. are now doing the same.
To administrators of private institutions, public funds are critical to support their schools, especially since they contribute to the state’s higher education.
Most states contribute to funding private higher education institutions in some way, whether it’s directly through laws or indirectly, such as through scholarships and grants, said University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan. Because of decreasing state funding, public institutions are turning to private companies and individuals for additional revenue.
“It’s become one of the interesting phenomenas in our time,” Kirwan said.
Maryland determines the amount of funding to private institutions through a law, the Joseph A. Sellinger State Aid Program – informally called the Sellinger formula – which gives them about 16 percent of the total amount of money the public universities receive. The formula allotment is based on the total enrollment of students, and not on the number of Maryland students each institution has.
The state gave $875 million this fiscal year to the system and $45.8 million to all of the private institutions in Maryland, according to the Maryland Higher Education Commission. Johns Hopkins University, the state’s premier medical school, received the most of any private school funding at $18.8 million because it has the most students.
“It’s been unusual for states to be funding private institutions this generally,” said Provost Bill Destler.
Maryland ranks among the top five states to fund private universities, while it ranks among the bottom five to fund public institutions, Kirwan said.
After coming to this university from the University of California-Berkeley, university President Dan Mote said he was shocked to see the state had a law that mandated the amount of state funding given to private institutions.
“I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dream the state of California giving money to Stanford,” Mote said.
John Porcari, vice president for administrative affairs, echoed the same concerns. He said he believes the Sellinger formula impacts the governor and legislators’ decision to allot for the university system since they know they have an additional cost to pay private institutions.
“I don’t understand the rationale behind it,” Porcari said. “There’s such a pressing public higher education need.”
However, officials of the Maryland Independent Colleges and Universities Association say private universities benefit the state by alleviating some of the burden on public institutions.
The state would have to contribute an additional $250 million annually to serve the 47,000 students who attend state schools if they didn’t give aid to private institutions, according to MICUA.
“If private universities didn’t exist, you would have a significantly higher rate in the university system to make up that difference,” said Steve Knapp, the provost of Johns Hopkins.
Knapp said Johns Hopkins use three-quarters of that money for financial aid for students from Maryland. He said the funding isn’t critical to the university’s operation, but it gives them flexibility in their budget. The other quarter of funds go to operational costs, such as police services, he said.
State Sen. P.J. Hogan (D-Montgomery) said he supports public funding for private universities because they also bring in money for the state through jobs and research projects.
But Matt Lehman, MICUA’s vice president for research and policies development, said administrators shouldn’t think there is a competition between public and private universities for state funding.
“Instead of fighting for the same bowl of dog food, hopefully the bowl gets bigger for everybody,” Lehman said.
At Penn State University, a public institution, the state appropriation only makes up 9.7 percent of the university’s budget, said Steve MacCarthy, vice president for university relations. At most universities in the nation, he said, the state support makes up 30 percent or more for budgets of large state universities.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” MacCarthy said. “When you take money and divert it away from the public universities, you just increase the cost at public institutions.”
Contact reporter Laurie Au at lauriedbk@gmail.com.
