[The Montana Professor 2.3, Fall 1992 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Editor's Note:
As a service to our readers, the editors invited Dorothy Bradley and Marc Racicot, candidates for governor, and Ron Marlenee and Pat Williams, candidates for Congress, to write an unedited message on higher education for this issue.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to all four for taking the needed time from their very busy schedules to author these messages.
Ron Marlenee
Candidate for Congress
Education is the foundation of our nation's future--the key to our future success and prosperity. Montana's University System has served the state well--our institutions of higher learning are among the best in the nation. 26 students at the University of Montana have been honored as Rhodes Scholars. Montana State University is known for graduates in architecture, engineering, agriculture and nursing who are second to none. The other four units of the system, as well as the three community colleges, have programs of which they are equally proud--a pride which has been earned first in the classroom and then in professional lives of their students.
Our colleges have attained this remarkable level of success in the face of extremely difficult financial times. It seems that every month the system must deal with one fiscal crisis or another--and yet our administrators and educators manage to rise to the challenge.
A major cause of the bleak economic picture facing education is one of neglect: collectively, Montana has ignored the basic industries which provide the tax dollars to support higher education. Montana has over-taxed and over-regulated its essential industries of agriculture, natural resources, small business and tourism. These are the turbines which drive Montana's economy, yet we have strained each sector to the breaking point.
I recognize it is unpopular to refute the agenda of extreme environmental activists, but driving Montana's backbone industries--like mining, timber harvesting and oil and gas development--out of the state and replacing each with minimum-wage, service-industry jobs, won't produce sufficient revenue to fund the state's fundamental services.
What kind of demand does tourism generate for the graduates of Montana Tech's School of Mines? MSU's electrical engineering program? Breaking our backbone industries only decreases in-state demand for many of our college graduates and cuts the tax revenues which support higher education. We as a people must recognize we our decimating our vital industries, and indirectly crippling education and other state services.
We must strive for a balance between protecting the environment for future generations, and stimulating the economy to provide the jobs necessary to keep our college graduates at home, if they want to work in Montana. Shortsightedness has cost Montanans good-paying jobs and the taxes those jobs generate, to such a point our infrastructure--like college campuses--is beginning to crumble from a lack of maintenance. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the consequences of our actions. We can have balance between the environment and the economy, if we will only work together.
On a national level, Congress is beginning to realistically address the financial needs of students through legislation like the recently passed higher Education Reauthorization bill, which I supported. A key provision allows students to repay their loans based on how much money they earn following graduation. Loan repayment would be collected as part of a student's income taxes. This provision is based on a bill I cosponsored: the Income Dependent Education Assistance Act of 1991 (IDEA). A graduate would simply repay a loan in relationship to his or her income. This provides sufficient flexibility for graduates to change jobs, take time out to raise a family, or deal with serious illness and yet still fulfill their obligation to repay student loans.
A second element of the IDEA bill was also incorporated in the Education Reauthorization Bill. It deals with determining financial need. No longer will a student be disqualified from receiving financial aid because his or her parents own a home or farm. It allows students to borrow as much as $70,000 for education regardless of income.
In the future, we must consider new ways to get college graduates on their feet. Perhaps we should give tax deductible status to the income new graduates earn to repay student loans. I have discussed this concept with numerous educational and congressional leaders and will continue to explore its viability.
A sound education program is vital to our future. It can open doors for those who can access the system. By improving financial aid programs, we are making higher education accessible to all, and securing our future national prosperity.
Marc Racicot
Candidate for Governor
My father was born the son of a logging camp cook in Libby, Montana. He was a child of the Depression and he knew hard times and hard work. After serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Second World War, he entered the University of Montana because he knew that securing an education was the secret to a fulfilling and productive life.
My father knew from the beginning that he wanted to be a teacher and a coach, and after graduation, he began a career that spanned 45 years, nurturing the young people of Montana. From the beginning, I understood clearly the important role that education would play in my life.
And I was fortunate enough to share my educational experience with my father who coached me in basketball throughout my high school years in Libby and college years in Helena.
I was afforded the opportunity of attending Carroll College where I attained a degree in English, and then the University of Montana, graduating with a Juris Doctorate in 1973. There hasn't been one day when I've gone to work or one moment when I have practiced my profession when I haven't been convinced of the value of the education I received. That education has allowed me to work at work worth doing. It provided me the tools to be a productive member of my community and the ability to take care of and provide for the security of my family.
The life of a democracy is dependent upon the education of a free people. An educated citizenry is essential to the maintenance of freedom. The ability of each individual to participate fully in that democracy is dependent upon his or her opportunity to receive a good education.
Providing educational opportunity is an evolutionary process. Its definition for today cannot be expected to apply to yesterday and certainly not tomorrow. Even a look at the differences in the student body, between today and yesterday, proves education is changing and must continue to evolve.
When I attended Carroll College and the University of Montana, most of my classmates were in their late teens and early twenties. Education for most students was a precursor to a lifelong career. Today, however, we are changing careers at least four times. The average age of college students approaches 30, and our higher education system must continue to adapt to career changes in a changing economy and society.
I agree with and support the Commission for Higher Education in the '90s and Beyond conclusion to maintain the University system in terms of number and function of units. Each unit of the University system meets specialized educational and cultural needs. We need to develop each one's special attributes.
As Governor, I will concentrate my efforts to focus on these legitimate concerns expressed by Montanans. I will work closely and personally with the Commissioner, Board of Regents, and University System Presidents to assure that our University System not only meets current state and national standards, but also establishes and meets higher standards for the benefits of our entire population.
Our higher education system must maintain the quality necessary to meet the needs of today's Montanans to remain employable in tomorrow's world. We must also preserve those courses that enhance us as individuals--courses such as literature, drama, history and philosophy. Montanans are willing to pay for quality higher education as long as they can see positive results and prudent stewardship of their investment. A Racicot/Rehberg administration will simply not sacrifice quality for the sake of the "bottom line." With five children of my own, two of them already enrolled in Montana colleges, I am personally concerned and committed to making sure our higher education system serves all Montanans as well as it served my father and me.
Pat Williams
Candidate for Congress
Each year at this time we celebrate the fall ritual of the reopening of college doors across our state and nation. Thousands of Montana students are returning to campus to pursue their dream of a college education in order to secure the promise that their college degree will hold for them.
At this time each year we rejoice in the fact that our system of higher education is the envy of the world, and that our sons and daughters will certainly benefit from what this world renowned enterprise has to offer them. Yet, it might also be appropriate to remember this year that our colleges are much more than places where we send our kids to get their degrees. These institutions have helped make our country the great place that it is. They have improved the quality of life for all of our people, especially through the important advancements our colleges have made in the sciences. Our colleges are also integral to the economy of our state and our nation; in fact, they are a vital component of our local, state, and national economies.
Colleges not only educate our kids, but they are major employers. Colleges buy products. They engage in research that helps the communities in which they're located and the people who live and work in those communities. Colleges assist in state and regional economic development activities. And, they and their students and faculty take part in a variety of public service efforts that help the community at large.
Nationally, colleges are an economic force. They pump about $160 billion into our national economy, about 3% of our nation's Gross Domestic Product. They provide work for more than 2.5 million people, employing more workers than the automobile, steel and textile industries combined. In many towns colleges are not only the major employer but also the major purchaser of local goods and services. The number of industries that rely on higher education to assist them in research grows each year. And the kinds of advancements produced on college campuses that help improve the lives of our people--such as the creation of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh and Albert Sabin of the University of Cincinnati--continue to take place each year in ever greater numbers.
And what happens nationally is replicated on college campuses across Montana. Last year Montana colleges pumped $245 million into the state and local economies. They employed more than 1,300 full-time faculty members and thousands more in support personnel. Our colleges enrolled more than 35,000 students. They spent more than $35 million on research alone. Of that amount, industry saw such value in what our colleges do that it invested $4.5 million in university research. The federal government invested more than $13 million. These investments recognize the important work that our colleges do.
And this work improves the lives of our people and strengthens our economy. Let me give you a few examples. The Agricultural Research Service Laboratory at Sidney, a joint venture of the USDA and Montana State University, supports research aimed at improving the economic viability of farming in the semi-arid northern Great Plains. This research could result in an annual $150 million economic benefit to farmers from reduced use of summer fallow and a more efficient use of both rain and irrigation water.
At the University of Montana, the Research and Training Center on Rural Rehabilitation Services employs more than 60 people in finding innovative solutions to problems facing rural areas in integrated day care, assisted technology, supported employment, independent living, and other rehabilitation issues facing the disabled population. And at Montana State, a state-of-the-art bioscience laboratory is underway, a joint public-private venture between MSU and the federal Department of Agriculture, that will conduct advanced biological research on plants, soils, insects and crop diseases and help improve Montana agriculture.
I was proud to support all of these projects and to be able to do what I could to help each one of them secure federal funding, for these are the kinds of investments that make sense, the kinds of investments that help our people and improve our country and our state. So when we think of college this time of year, think not only of students and classrooms, but also of the essential research and the advancement of knowledge and learning that will make all of our lives a little bit better. Colleges are places where we turn for answers, and they are places where we look for new questions to ask that will help us shape our future. Investing in them makes sense!
Dorothy Bradley
Candidate for Governor
There are two university systems in Montana. One is tangible: you can see it on paper and you can visit it and watch how it works any day of the week. The other one exists in the mind's eye of the public. Both are real, and unless we can get them in better synch with each other, the future of higher education in this state will be in jeopardy.
The more concrete university system is well known to the Montana professorate. It is part of your daily experience, just as it is for the staffs and students of the state's universities and community colleges. This is the system which functions fairly well, despite routine problems, stressful working conditions, periodic bouts with flagging morale, and endemic shortages of funds. This Montana University system attracts favorable attention from a variety of folks in faraway places who have specialized knowledge in a particular discipline or a keen interest in one of our specialized research programs. Each of the individual units in the system is also remembered fondly by members of the alumni--witness the way Montanans display pride in their respective alma maters by sporting the initials on their license plates. Moreover, it is to specific faculties and institutions that up and coming students attach their loyalty. The system I am describing is one in which we can all feel pride of ownership, but also one for which we must all feel growing concern, because it has a split personality, and one of them is getting a bad reputation among the electorate.
The other university system is often perceived as inefficient, unresponsive, and overburdened with administration. It frequently gets a bad rap in the press and receives failing marks in over-the-counter conversations. We have a large and growing number of families and individuals who are struggling to make ends meet in these times of economic duress, and as taxpayers they increasingly demand value for their money. They want to see a more streamlined university system in this state, with fewer "frills," less duplication, lower costs. They deserve more than a sympathetic hearing.
I am intimately familiar with both systems, and the attitudes and arguments that go along with them. I know that our university system has structural problems that are terribly difficult to address and solve in the political arena, especially in the context of a strained economy and a budget deficit. I also know that higher education is an absolutely essential component of Montana's success, not only in economic terms, but in the broadest sense of cultural and social development. We cannot afford NOT to invest in higher education. We have to prove ourselves flexible and adaptable if we expect to achieve any kind of prosperity in the decades ahead. Without a healthy university system our young people will grow up disadvantaged in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
One task of leadership, as I see it, is to bring the two university systems into closer harmony. By that I mean that we must make improvements in the visible, tangible system where we can, so that public perceptions improve accordingly, but also work hard to educate the public at large as to the economic worth and social benefit of our multi-unit network of educational institutions. I want Montana taxpayers to gain confidence in a system that is both scholastically sound and cost-effective, and to demonstrate that confidence with greater verbal and financial support. I also want people in the higher education profession to work harder at winning that confidence. Neither task will be easy. We may have to reduce some administrative overhead, eliminate some duplicated services, and offer fewer choices of elective courses. We may want to focus the resources of each unit on areas of comparative advantage, and make it easier for students to transfer credits within the system. All of this will require hard work and difficult choices.
There is a natural tension between universities and other institutions, public and private. Our system of higher education is based on developing and cultivating each individual's capacity for critical thinking. It is inevitable that many young graduates enter the workforce armed with a skeptical outlook toward business and bureaucracy. We have to remember that this questioning attitude, when combined with practical, on the job experience, is the basis of progress.
As I have said many times and in many places on the campaign trail, there is no comparison between the cost of education and the price of ignorance. Higher education is the foundation of the new Western economy, an economy characterized by urbanization, diversification, and globalization. We cannot build a competitive economy without a knowledgeable and highly trained work force. We cannot hope to generate good, stable, jobs with good incomes without preparing our young people for an economic future shaped by international demand for scientific and technological expertise.
Market forces are pushing more and more Montanans off the land and into our largest towns and cities. To a large degree, the University system units in Havre, Dillon, Glendive, and Kalispell serve as both a brake and a cushion against an accelerated flight from rural areas. Were it not for these institutions, the prospects for rural Montanans would be much tougher than they are already. In this regard I am also interested in expanding the state's offerings in distance learning. A new fiber optic network and improved telecommunications capabilities point toward new horizons in the delivery of instructional services to people in even the most remote parts of the state. I'm also a true believer in life-long learning, and want our university system to serve citizens of all ages, including people who are changing careers or broadening their intellectual horizons in retirement.
As governor, I will strive to bring our academic institutions and other sectors of the Montana community together. Education is a cooperative endeavor. Higher education is no different. The links between "town" and "gown" are vital. We never could afford that false luxury of having our universities estranged from their host communities. Now that Montana faces unprecedented fiscal challenges and a broad range of new economic opportunities, solidarity in business, government and education is essential.
[The Montana Professor 2.3, Fall 1992 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]