Speaker: MSU needs more state funding

Amy Blouin, executive director of the Missouri Budget Project, is concerned that Missouri State University, Springfield’s fifth-largest employer with 2,665 and its lone public four-year university, isn’t getting enough state money.

“Missouri State is one of the universities in Missouri that has lost state aid in the past few years due to the budget cuts,” Blouin said after speaking at MSU on Oct. 3.

Blouin heads a St. Louis-based nonpartisan, nonprofit group with a $300,000 annual operating budget that advocates higher taxes and higher public spending.

According to the Missouri Department of Higher Education, state aid to four-year colleges and universities has dropped 8 percent from the $767.7 million allotted in the 2001 budget.

The appropriated amount has increased from $706.5 million this fiscal year to $708.2 million for fiscal year 2006, but Blouin said that’s not enough. “Even though it’s going up,” she said, “it’s still way behind.”

According to state Senate appropriations, higher education comprises 11.9 percent – or $856 million – of the $7.1 billion fiscal year 2006 budget. That figure includes funding to vocational schools and other programs in addition to funding for four-year institutions.

Blouin said higher tuition is directly tied to lower state aid. Department of Education figures show tuition and fees for state residents at MSU has increased 53 percent since 2001, from $3,564 to $5,454.

The solution, Blouin said, is higher state taxes. She said Missourians have the 29th-highest per capita income at $30,608 but the sixth-lowest per capita state tax revenue at $1,585, citing 2004 U.S. Census and Bureau of Economic Analysis figures.

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