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UM System President works to dispel 'negative' higher education perceptions
Editor's Note: See the Friday Daily Mail for more on Wolfe's visit to Nevada.
Nevada Daily Mail
Higher education is affordable and it's imperative to the state's economy to keep Missouri students in Missouri colleges and universities.
Those were among the points that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe made at Nevada during the 23rd stop on his Show Me Value tour.
Saying the UM System's mission is to serve all Missourians, Wolfe spent an hour addressing community members at the Healthy Nevada Innovation Center over lunch.
It was the last of three stops during his day in Nevada, which included meeting with 3M officials and touring the plant, and a presentation to Nevada Middle School students. Each stop ended with an exchange of questions and answers.
The tour seeks to focus on "communicating the value of higher education to all Missourians," noted the announcement of the event.
"The president's Show Me Value tour was created in 2013 in response to growing national sentiment that the value of a college degree is declining and that youth should be encouraged to find alternatives to obtaining a four-year college degree."
President Wolfe's aim was to stress the personal and societal benefits of obtaining a college degree.
Wednesday, he said he has found from his visits with seventh and eighth graders that many believe they just can't afford to attend school in today's economy.
"The comments are pretty much the same," from the middle school students, he said, no matter where he is visiting.
"Education is unaffordable, there's too much student debt, and there are no jobs," for grads.
"It's all negative," Wolfe said.
It's imperative to counter that thinking, which he said is often passed down from the parents, who have to juggle their own living expenses and then try to find a way to help their child or children attend college.
"We have to be better at what we do and stop playing the blame game," Wolfe said, adding the UM System must take the lead in changing that perception.
"As the only land grant institution in the state, our mission is to serve our six million Missourians.
"It's imperative to go out and have a conversation on the value of higher education with our students and communicate that.
"I've talked to over 9,000 middle school students, been on industry tours, and taken part in community conversations like this one.
"At our stops at industry, I've asked how we are doing in preparing the workforce, in doing what we can to find ways to help.
"We want to know how we can help them (the businesses and industries) connect up with our schools, from researching potential products to providing internships and future employees."
Companies like 3M need an educated workforce, he said.
"About two thirds of all jobs require some kind of college degree."
With his background in business, which includes over 30 years, from his time at IBM, at Michigan-based global consulting and technology services company Covansys, to infrastructure software giant Novell, prior to becoming the 23rd president of the four campus UM System (Columbia, Rolla - Missouri S&T, UM Kansas City, and UM St. Louis), he wants to find ways for the educational system to do its part in helping business and industry grow.
He said there was a lot to share at 3M.
"Due to the complexities of scale and size, we (at UM) have a centralized procurement solution, based on cost. But we can look at a higher level of conversation," around not just cost but on product efficiencies in considering purchasing options.
Seguing from his praise of 3M, saying he was "ecstatic" about his visit, to his praise of the Nevada Public School System, "one of the best," he remarked on his time spent with 400 seventh and eighth grade students at Nevada Middle School.
"They had remarkable attentiveness and their questions were on point. That says a lot about the students, the parents, and the educators. You've got a great community."
Those questions and comments about college, he said, echoed a common theme.
"With the students today and with other middle schoolers, they tell us it's affordability," in stating why a number of the middle school students weren't considering higher education.
"It comes up at every stop. They are already determining they can't go to college. So what motivation have they to do well in school," he asked.
To combat the belief that college isn't affordable, Wolfe said he has high hopes for another try at a statewide cigarette tax.
The tobacco-tax issue, called Proposition B, was defeated narrowly in 2012. It was the third attempt in 11 years to increase state taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Missouri's cigarette tax of 17 cents per pack is the nation's lowest. The proposition would have boosted the rate to 90 cents per pack, still below the national average of $1.49, giving the state the 33rd-highest rate. Taxes on other tobacco products sold in Missouri also would have risen.
The measure was crafted to benefit both public health and education. The money generated -- an estimated $283 million to $423 million a year -- was earmarked for public elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and programs that discourage youth from smoking and help smokers quit.
While it didn't pass, there are a variety of proposals seeking to get on the ballot next year that would use the funds from a tax to help pay for state transportation to early childhood education and health screenings.
Just how much of a tax and who benefits depends on which group is making the proposal.
Wolfe said he favors a version that would result in dedicated higher education scholarship dollars.
"If it (labeled 'Missouri Promise') passes (in this form), this reduces the average student cost to 50 percent of the retail price of tuition and fees."
According to Wolfe and others in the higher education field, including Clif Smart, president of Missouri State University, passage of the Missouri Promise would result in $200 to $320 million annually that would be used for scholarships.
In the Springfield News-Leader, Smart said that the program isn't a giveaway to colleges.
"Universities don't get any of that money. Zero. It's a scholarship program."
Wolfe said the amount would be a "significant portion," in reducing a student's cost.
He noted the student would receive approximately a $21,000 discount during his or her college years if a 3.0 GPA is maintained.
"It's a game changer and would have a positive effect on the economy.
"If we can keep college affordable, that's money the parents don't have to save for college and money that they can spend on a car or a house.
"And if the students don't graduate with debt, that's money they can spend on their own car."
In that scenario, Wolfe said, the "parents are motivated to keep the kids on the path" and "parents aren't having to save as much for helping pay for their child's college education."
That's the message that needs to get out, he noted.
Wolfe provided a bevy of numbers to illustrate his point.
"We typically have around 60,000 high school graduates each year. That number is fewer now than in the past.
"Some 8,000 of those graduates won't go to college.
"About 3,000 who do go to college will go outside Missouri. And in many cases, they're leaving and not coming back. They are not attracted to jobs in our state," he said.
Wolfe cited nearby Arkansas as an example of a university system that is making it attractive for out-of-state students to attend, by offering a variety of financial aid packages, often including in-state tuition if the student meets qualifying criteria.
"There are significant incentives to go to Arkansas.
"We could be like these other states that attract 50 percent of their students from out of state.
"But we're not. Seventy to 75 percent of the students in our system come from Missouri. We want to perpetuate that because that's our mission and that's who we serve.
"The biggest issue is the pipeline. We have to fix it."
That's particularly true, he said, with those students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math.
"Of that number of high school graduates, 28,000 have a 3.0 grade point average or higher.
"And of those graduates who have the GPA and the necessary class background for a STEM career, that number drops to around 6,000.
"And of those, how many are actually interested in those fields? That's about 1,000.
"There's a disconnect. There are great jobs out there."
Citing his own children, Wolfe said when students are asked why they aren't interested in pursuing STEM, he said, the response is "it's boring.
"We have to change the way we teach science and math and how we communicate this information in meaningful terms."
Wolfe singled out the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.
According to its website, the center, named for the renowned actor, was established in 2009 to enhance understanding of science by helping train the next generation of scientists and health professionals to communicate more effectively with the public, public officials, the media, and others outside their discipline."
"We've got to produce teachers to convey knowledge in way that attracts students and not repels them," Wolfe said.
And with more students heading to and graduating from college, there will be more students available for the workforce.
"That's economic development, and we play a role in that. Our challenge is to create jobs.
"We do 90 percent of the research in higher education but we need to do more. For every $1 of sponsored research, it costs $1.20 to $1.30 to do it.
"Even so, we're doing more now but we need to do more still. We're growing research across all four campuses because we know this will lead to more innovation and new businesses being launched. We can help them (the graduating entrepreneurs) put that (their plans and their funding) together."
The UM System is and must continue to find ways to better serve its mission, Wolfe concluded.
"We have to be more transparent and collaborative. We have to be competitive and we need to improve everything we do in the education pipeline.
"We need to make sure we're delivering value for your taxpayer dollars."