Strong universities ensure bright future
BYLINE: Michael Schwartz, Special To The Plain Dealer
After many years of underinvestment in higher education, something exciting is happening in Ohio. Policy-makers in Columbus are buying into the idea that strong colleges and universities will bolster future economic growth in the state.
Under the bipartisan leadership of Gov. Ted Strickland, House Speaker Jon Husted and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, the role of state government in ensuring high quality and accessible higher education for our citizens is strengthening and growing significantly. In the current biennial state budget draft, the House leadership built on the governor's proposed $200 million investment in higher education with an additional $34 million in state subsidy and a $100 million scholarship fund for students pursuing degrees in science, technology, mathematics and engineering.
Every individual in Ohio is deserving of a high quality post-secondary education at an affordable price (this has been my mantra while at the helm of Cleveland State University).
No citizen should ever be turned away from a higher education opportunity for economic reasons alone. Ohio cannot afford to waste talent. It is well-documented that citizens with degrees have higher earning power over their careers and that a region with significant numbers of college graduates scores higher on job development and economic growth scales. This path toward a stronger economic future should not be started with higher education debt loads that often exceed an individual's first-year salary. As the current biennial state budget moves forward, we will be one step closer to alleviating the financial burden of a higher education for families.
State leaders, however, are not the only ones who shoulder the responsibility for providing a high quality education at an affordable price. The higher education community must also reconsider the work that we do and how we do it. Over the last five years, Cleveland State University has been realigning budgets, evaluating programs and devising solutions focused on ways to deliver a curriculum and university experience that prepares our graduates for the new, global economic reality. We're dedicated to this and to the effort to help to ensure that these same graduates are prepared to live a strong, thoughtful life of seriously engaged citizenship in the defense of liberty.
We have made some difficult decisions and some difficult cuts, but we do this for the good of our higher education system and the good of our community. With the state coming to the plate to provide assistance in this task - and continuing to require a high level of accountability for what we are developing - I am certain that Northeast Ohio will be able to jump from our economic doldrums to a robust, thriving economic reality.
The next step toward making Cleveland State University and the other public institutions of higher education in Ohio the first choice for our children is to first applaud our governor and the House for the fine work they have done in crafting a budget that is realistic about the needs of our public higher education system. The second step is to encourage Senate President Bill Harris to continue this momentum when his team votes on the budget in the coming weeks.
Finally, when the proposed budget becomes a reality, all citizens in Ohio - potential students, families, faculty, staff and university administrators - must begin the hard work of turning Ohio back into the educational and economic gem of the nation. It can be done.
Schwartz is president of Cleveland State University.