Arizona struggles to draw large corporate employers, says state Board of Regents Chair Anne Mariucci.Arizona lags in showing businesses that the state's higher education system can produce the qualified workforce they need, the chair of the Arizona Board of Regents says.
"We've had a difficult time attracting large corporate employers that are established because we are not perceived as being a high producer of a skilled workforce, either in terms of initial graduates or postgraduates," Regents Chair Anne Mariucci said in an interview for Friday's Arizona Week.
Mariucci said the coming cuts in state funding for Arizona's three public universities will be absorbed mostly through expense reductions, but there will be another round of tuition increases. At the same time, she said, the regents are committed to making sure that students who need financial aid get it.
"Forty cents of every dollar of increase (in tuition) in the last three years has gone to financial aid," she said. "I take the position, as do my fellow regents, that no qualified, need-based student that can meet the criteria for admission" will be turned away.
Tuition has gone up every year in the last quarter-century except one, in the early 1990s. The increases in the last five years have been steep, totaling 73.3 percent at the University of Arizona, 48.1 percent at Arizona State University and 55.1 percent at Northern Arizona University.
Tuition and fees for Arizona residents this school year total $8,237 at the UA, $6,942 at ASU and $7,053 at NAU.
The level of increases for 2011-12 are expected to be decided at the next Board of Regents regular meeting, April 7 and 8 in Tucson.
Academic program cuts and consolidations are inevitable, but they threaten the state's economic viability, Mariucci said.
"You cut into the bone of the higher education system, and you mortgage our future as a state," she said.
"When Arizona is trying to attract critical large company, large corporate employers, we've got to be able to demonstrate that we have the pipeline of skilled and qualified labor in the new and emerging technical, engineering kinds of fields," she added.
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer introduced, pushed through the Legislature and signed a business development and jobs creation bill in three days last month that included significant tax cuts and incentives for businesses and some job training funds, but no resources for the universities.
Brewer said in an interview the day before signing the jobs bill that she recognizes the state must be able to provide a trained workforce but that the universities must become more efficient and innovative. She also called on them to demonstrate that they are being successful.
Mariucci said this week that a system is being rolled out that will measure the universities' performances in freshmen retention, graduation rates and other factors that will lead to improvements. Tied to it will be pay programs for the presidents of the universities.
Reporter Michael Chihak further explores the economic impact of university funding reductions in tonight's episode of Arizona Week. Watch now:
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