I find it fascinating how students and faculty are so quick to blame our great state for not giving us the exact dollar amount of money we already spent. As mentioned in my previous post, if the budget cuts truly did take 14% off of our state revenue received last year, our school would have to return to an operating budget we had in 2005-2006, merely 2 years ago. After continually hearing the ungrateful and misinformed special interest armchair lobbying students/faculty at this school, I thought I could attempt to bring things into perspective by completely eliminating the state revenue account, and allow this school to be operated as if it were a private university (ie. a normal business). In order to compile the comparison, I have gathered the following pieces of information:
(Click to Enlarge)The number to recognize is the Total FY 2007 Budget: $445,248,856.
Other information to note:
Total amount of money Nevada gives UNR: $261,082,970
Total amount of Money UNR generates (tuition, etc): $184,155,886.
The next piece of information needed to bring things into perspective here is:
(Click to Enlarge)To properly put things into perspective, let us assume that our school was in fact a private university. If we were to operate as largely and as inefficiently as our current operating budget suggests sans the money the state of Nevada graciously gives us, each student on average would have to pay: (445,248,856 / 15,146 ) = $29,397 PER STUDENT PER YEAR too keep the university operating at its current level.
"Woah, hey John can you repeat that again?!"
"Sure! If the state of Nevada did not give UNR money to operate; at its current operating level, each student, on average, would have to pay nearly $29,397 per year to keep it afloat."
"And people are complaining that Nevada STILL doesn't give us enough money??"
"Ridiculous, isn't it?"
So, this begs the question: Are we receiving an education on par with other universities that charge such tuition? Let's glance at a few school that have similar tuition rates:
Imagine the possibilities we would all have if our school wasn't wasting, squandering, and inefficiently utilizing so much of the state's money. Even with all things considered, our state still graciously and generously gives us an approximate 8% compounding interest increase in funding each year, regardless of student enrolement. So as a school and a student/faculty body, how about we first take the log out of our own eye so we can see clearly to take the speck out of Nevada's.
