Posted on: Monday, September 27, 2004

EDITORIAL
State money for UH is vital to its success

While it was offered with a smile, a message delivered last week by interim University of Hawai'i president David McClain should be taken with utter seriousness.

Speaking to a group of corporate planners, McClain issued what amounts to an ultimatum for lawmakers and policy-makers who control the state's pursestrings:

Either pump more money into our only statewide higher education system or allow the university to sink into mediocrity.

Lawmakers with the most direct responsibility for the university, including the chairs of the House and Senate Education committees, reacted positively but cautiously to McClain's message.

Their point: Before the UH gets more money, it must prove that the money it has is being spent wisely.

That's a fair challenge.

It is critical, however, that the UH not be measured by direct dollar-to-dollar, day-to-day cost-benefit analysis. It is in the nature of a university that money spent today shows up as benefits years later.

That's obviously true in the education of students. It costs money, with no immediate benefit, to give students a first-class education. But the long-term benefits to society of a well-educated, productive workforce are obvious.

The same applies to research. Money poured into academic research can appear to be dollars into a sinkhole. Not every research project pays off economically.

But research, pure and applied, is the backbone of a healthy economy. And in and of itself, UH research brings millions of dollars into the Hawai'i economy every year.

While the claim for more taxpayer support is legitimate, it must be recognized that the pattern both here and across the country is for universities to depend ever more on their own resources.

Even Hawai'i, which has a strong history of close financial and political relationships between the Capitol and the university, has begun to break the bonds.

Ultimately, the university — if it wishes to maintain its hard-won autonomy — will have to become much more self-sustaining.

Still, McClain's challenge to the Legislature is a serious one. If lawmakers and others at the state Capitol are not up to meeting that challenge, we'd like to hear why.