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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, May 24, 2004

Strapped UH facing surge in students

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

The fall boom in enrollment at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa is only the beginning of a tidal wave projected to bring record numbers of students into the UH system in the next few years.

Operating budgets

Net state funding for the University of Hawai'i operating budget:

2002: $303 million minus $12 million for salary raises gained through collective bargaining.

2003: $312 million minus $29 million for salary increases.

2004: $310 million

2005: $310 million

On the one hand, a 6 percent increase this fall that could put enrollment over 21,000 students for the first time in 25 years is a welcome addition to the campus. It means richer tuition coffers to help support academic programs and an increasingly diverse student body that recognizes an academic bargain.

But administrators are wondering how all those students can be handled by run-down facilities, dilapidated dormitories and out-of-date laboratories in a climate of flat state funding for higher education that has pinched academics, too.

That to-the-bone financing will be felt again this fall.

The implications for Manoa students could be far-reaching — and costly — affecting everything from class availability to how long it takes to graduate.

Current students — especially those close to graduation — already can see the impact.

"The classes are just going to be a lot fuller," said Amy Petersen, 22, of Kahuku. The history major had to sit on the floor in two overbooked classes the past two semesters.

"You can't get into the classes you want now, so it's just compounding the problem because there's too many people," Petersen said. "They keep accepting more, but we don't have enough teachers for them, not to mention parking. And if you sign up for a class you're not really interested in, you're not going to do as well."

Departments with the highest demand are trying to cut expenditures by paring classes, lecturers, sections, student help, electric bills and more. The belt-tightening is due to the snowballing effects of a decade of erosion of state funding; new academic forces tilting the pendulum toward the sciences and away from the humanities; and higher percentages of resources going to professional schools such as law and medicine.

"Manoa can't continue to grow with these kinds of (enrollment) numbers forever," said Ron Cambra, executive assistant to chancellor Peter Englert and associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences.

"Our real challenges are all the basic things. Housing is a major challenge to come up with enough beds. And we're trying to identify where the bottlenecks will be, such as the basic English course. That's going to be a major pressure point. If numbers go up, there's obviously a demand for several hundred more (spaces)."

As a result of all these forces, students this fall can expect:

  • Fewer sections of some courses in the humanities, with some disappearing altogether.
  • Increasing class sizes, including more students in science laboratories, plus a reduction in the number of laboratories scheduled.
  • A potentially longer school day, with classes being pushed further into the afternoon and even the evening to accommodate extra students.
  • A potential increase in traffic congestion during afternoon rush-hour, and even problems for students juggling academics and part-time jobs.
  • An even tighter housing market around the university as those who can't find dorm space look elsewhere. There are more than 4,000 applications already for the 3,082 dormitory beds on campus.
  • It may continue to take longer to graduate at UH-Manoa.

History student Petersen starts two classes in summer school today to get the credits she needs, but she'll still be graduating a year or more behind schedule because of shortages of teachers in her field. Virtually every college on campus is operating well below the number of faculty of a decade ago.

"It's really frustrating because you pay what you have to pay and you're all excited to learn about what you're interested in and you can't get into classes because they're packed," said Petersen, who commutes from the North Shore. "There was one class I took, Greek and Roman mythology, and it's only offered once a year and there were at least 100 students packed in there. Classes just get filled up because they're needed and wanted."

College tidal wave

• Within the next five years, there will be 8 percent more high school graduates nationally than today, with 3.2 million students potentially moving into the college market.

• The highest growth will be in the western and southern states, including staggering levels of growth in Arizona and Nevada. As well, by 2010 there will be more than 600,000 eligible students from California who can't be served by the California state college system. Manoa is already seeing growing numbers of Mainland students, especially from California, and that is only expected to increase.

• Hawai'i will have 10,000 high school graduates annually by 2006, peaking at 10,500 in five years.

Source: Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education

Peterson's difficulty reflects the struggle that is occurring especially in the humanities as a decade of smaller budget allocations compete with increasing enrollments.

"Most of the units on campus have pools of money in carry-over funds from previous years that they rely on to make up any deficit," said Manoa spokesman Jim Manke. "In Arts and Humanities and Languages, Linguistics and Literature, the carry-over balances are not sufficient to fund what they want to do."

In the College of Arts and Humanities, one of the four largest units on campus, dean Judith Hughes expects to cut 16 lecturers for the fall. That means fewer sections of art, music, speech, theater and dance classes with the loss of an average of 240 student seats in the fall and potentially far more in the spring.

"I told our chairs the first thing you have to protect is courses students need for graduation," Hughes said.

In the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, interim dean Joseph O'Mealy has trimmed 10 lecturers for fall, and sections will be lost in Indo-Pacific languages including Samoan, Ilocano, as well as Japanese and English 100.

"All our money is going to be used for fall lecturers," O'Mealy said. "That's the strategy and we hope the direness of the situation would loosen up funds for the spring."

If that doesn't happen, it will mean 1,200 fewer seats in the spring for students taking foreign languages, he said.

"These are required courses for graduation. Foreign language requires four semesters. It would put them behind a semester, at least, and this will continue because we don't have any money for the following year."

Manoa chancellor Englert has tried to ease some of the immediate problems in the fall by giving extra money held aside in the budget to both colleges. Some classes have been reinstated, but not all.

"We intend to cover what we need to cover and we're still working that out," said Rodney Sakaguchi, Manoa vice chancellor for finance and operations. "We're monitoring enrollment. ... If it looks like a lot of the enrollment increase is going into core courses, then of course we're going to have to cover that. But if they're going into less critical or central courses, then we're going to have a discussion."

The College of Natural Sciences is also seeing problems.

"We have less faculty than we did 10 years ago but roughly 50 percent more enrollment (in majors,)" said dean Charles Hayes. "That means there will be more people in class with you than before. In some classes, a lot more."

As science has developed, the costs of lab materials have also spiraled, said Hayes. As a result, he expects fewer lab options for fall and more students in those that are available.

"We need more money to keep up," Hayes said. "Two of my buildings, Snyder and Edmondson, are the buildings on campus that need work more than any others. For instance, we need more electricity in the buildings just to run the research equipment." (About $300,000 in maintenance is being put into one of the buildings this summer to improve electrical capacity.)

UH President Evan Dobelle calls all of these challenges "the best argument for a West O'ahu and a bigger Hilo and increased opportunities at the two-year colleges.

"There's a demand here," said Dobelle. "We're now seeing young men and women who want to stay home (for college) but we can't take them all. The reality is we don't have enough money to fund the demand for public education and that's why our next budget has to speak to the potential growth of the university.

"The point is, UH is 'hot' for the first time in 25 years and it's going to continue to be that and we're going to continue to push the envelope."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.