MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- The mid-state’s colleges and universities are getting their academic year underway.
Vanderbilt, Lipscomb, and Fisk universities opened their doors to students this week. Austin Peay, Tennessee State, Trivecca and Middle Tennessee State are set to start classes next week.
Tennessee’s public institutions are feeling the financial strain of flagging state support. Citing a drop in tax revenues, Governor Haslam and the State Legislature this fiscal year provided a level of funding for higher education that was essentially unchanged from the previous school year.
As a result, most of Tennessee’s public colleges and universities raised tuition again this fall. The increases ranged from five to more than eight percent.
In a speech delivered Friday morning at Middle Tennessee State, University President Sidney A. McPhee told his staff and faculty that “times have change.” He noted that whatever level of state funding is provided going forward, it will be driven by retention and graduations rates, rather than enrollment numbers.
“The bottom line is that our survival, now, and in the future, will not be in saying that ‘We are the largest undergraduate university in the State of Tennessee.’ It is going to be the number of students that this university produces for the workforce in this region and the state.”
Pressed by the Haslam Administration, the Tennessee Legislature in 2010 changed the way the state funds higher education. By emphasizing retention and graduation, the governor hopes to boost the number of Tennesseans entering the workforce with a college degree.