Five Questions: Hal Higdon

Q: What is the biggest issue facing Missouri community colleges?

A: The biggest issue is the dramatic underfunding of higher education in Missouri. Right now, we’re 47th in the nation in funding for higher education, and headed lower. In the last two or three years, we’ve seen some increases, which have been greatly appreciated, but we’re still not back to where we were in 2001, and we’ve continued to fall behind other states. When you don’t fund higher education, it’s like a company not putting money back into product development. You ... lose your competitive edge.

Q: Do you see any immediate improvements?

A: Next year is not going to be good. Everyone in Jefferson City tells us we’re facing a negative revenue stream that the legislature and the new governor will be faced with in January. Everyone is prepared for the fact that there will be no new money for education, and very likely we could see cuts again like we did in 2001.

Q: Is OTC considering another tax levy increase request?

A: I think in this economic climate … it would be a waste of our time and the taxpayers’ time. We’ve made an issue of the point that we’re funded lower than any other community college by the local taxpayers, but just as disturbing is that, we’re funded lower than any other community college in the state by the state. We get about 50 cents on the dollar for our students compared to St. Louis and Kansas City; (the state says) our students are worth half as much as students at those two schools (under) the state funding formula.

Q: Why the discrepancy?

A: We’ve grown quickly – we’re a young school, and the funding formula doesn’t reflect enrollment. So we get less and less every year per student, while those that aren’t growing actually get more per student. We’re being penalized for our growth.

Q: OTC recently announced a partnership with Drury University to offer a Bachelor of Science in organizational studies at OTC’s Richwood Valley campus. What’s the importance of that program?

A: This will give people in Christian County and the surrounding counties the chance to go to OTC for two years and then stay at that campus and get their degree from Drury. We still have this offer to the other universities, that if they’d like to come to Richwood Valley and offer the junior and senior level or graduate classes, we’d be more than happyWe’d like to see that become the higher education hub for that part of our service district.