"All hat and no cattle": separate and unequal funding for higher education in Texas.

"All hat and no cattle" is a Texas phrase that means all talk and no substance. (Garry Trudeau in Doonesbury often uses this idiom to depict President Bush, who appears as a disembodied cowboy hat.) It is also an apt description of the state of higher education in Texas.

After the economic slump following September 11, 2001, many states suffered severe deficits and difficult decisions about limiting them through funding cuts or tax increases or both. In the fall of 2002, Texas Republican candidates ran on a "no tax increase" platform, a seemingly sustainable goal since State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn (R) estimated the Texas deficit at a manageable $5.1 billion (King 2). Public watch organizations and the Legislative Budget Board contested that figure, but very little information was provided to the public until after the November elections produced a Republican sweep of all major state offices and legislative bodies. Then Strayhorn released the final Texas deficit amount: $9.9 billion. In the spring of 2003, the Texas State Legislature and state officials galloped to cut essential services, deeming the cuts "necessary sacrifices" to save the state from impending financial doom--sacrifices made primarily by low-income and non-white Texans. Using fear-inciting, depression-era rhetoric about the conservation of limited resources, the legislature eliminated and cut programs, including essential services, more than two-thirds into the fiscal year.

Before the budget deficit, Texas higher education was already in a state of financial crisis due to rapid increases in the college-age population as a result of the baby boom echo, population redistribution, and immigration. Also, report after report indicated that Texas colleges and universities were not equitably serving their constituents. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) recognized what radicals take as a given: that ethnicity, social class, and location played significant roles in the disparate rates of access to and graduation from Texas's institutions of higher learning. Thus, while the legislature was cutting funds for public colleges and universities, THECB established a policy requiring colleges and universities to allocate greater funding to outreach programs, assessment, curricula, and financial aid, under a program called "Closing the Gaps: The Texas Higher Education Plan."

The goal of the "Closing the Gaps" plan is to improve access to higher education in Texas for under-represented populations, particularly economically disadvantaged, Hispanic, and black students. According to THECB (4), "a large gap exists among racial/ethnic groups in both enrollment and graduation from the state's colleges and universities." There is also a significant gap between college participation rates in Texas and those in other states: 5.1 percent of Texas's population participates in higher education (THECB, April 2003), against a national average of 5.5 percent (THECB 8). For Texas to meet the national attendance average, its schools would have to enroll 76,000 more students. To meet the 2003 enrollment percentages of California (the state whose educational access Texas purports to emulate) Texas would have to "immediately enroll 200,000 more students" (THECB 8). So "Closing the Gaps" charges universities to:

   Establish an affordable policy that
   ensures students are able to participate
   and succeed in higher education
   by: providing grants and
   scholarships to cover tuition, fees,
   and books for every student with
   financial need; setting tuition and
   fees in a manner that closes
   gaps in participation
   and success; and establishing
   incentives that
   increase affordability
   through academic and
   administrative efficiencies
   in the higher education
   system. (THECB 1-2)

But not only do these laudable mandates to enroll greater numbers of students come at a time when university budgets have been cut to address the $9.9 billion deficit (with no relief in sight two years later as we enter yet another legislative session), Texas colleges and universities were already required to demonstrate substantive progress toward "closing the gaps" and incentives and penalties induce compliance. And at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), we have been closing gaps from the outset.

There are several minority-majority institutions in Texas, most of which chiefly serve a single minority population. Texas Southern University and Prairie View A & M are historically black universities, for instance, and the University of Texas at E1 Paso and the University of Texas Pan American chiefly serve Hispanics. UHD is a minority-majority university as well, but we do not serve a single minority; U.S. News and World Report recognized us as the most diverse university west of the Mississippi.

The University of Houston Downtown is 36 percent Hispanic, 27 percent African-American, 23 percent Anglo/White, 10 percent Asian American, and 3 percent international students, many of whom come from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. And most UHD students in all these groups are first-generation college students from poor, working-class, and immigrant families. With such demographics, UHD has always had gap closing as an inherent mission. Our annual enrollment increases (averaging over 8 percent for the past five years), along with our steadily increasing graduation rates, attest to our success in closing those gaps, and doubtless, as the Higher Education Coordinating Board Report puts it, ensuring that our students "contribute to the state's economic base through taxes [making] ... them less likely to require public assistance" (THECB 4). Between our enrollment and our funding levels, however, there is a curious gap, which impairs our ability to carry out the mission, and serve our students with programming that facilitates retention and graduation.

With an enrollment of 11,038, UHD is the 14th largest of 35 Texas public universities, the 2nd largest public university in southeast Texas, and dead last in state funding, available financial aid, and supplemental funding for capital projects. And this was so before the budget crisis occurred. When it came, the demand for UHD to "return" state funds in March of 2003 was particularly devastating since this university receives more than 90 percent of its funding from the state. Fall semester was over, spring semester was nearly complete, registration for summer had begun, and all monies had been allocated. In order to repay the state, UHD rescinded its long-standing policy for summer school pay (thus making UHD faculty the only state employees on whom a pay cut was imposed); increased class sizes; froze tenure-track positions; and escalated reliance upon adjuncts. The financial situation was so desperate that facilities management proposed reducing air conditioning levels--in Houston, in the summer. The second blow was the comptroller's decision to reduce fiscal year 2003-2004 budgets by 7 percent, with that 7 percent applied after the 3 percent giveback. The combined effect of these cuts was a reduction of 10 percent for 2003-2004, while enrollments increased by 4.4 percent.

The crisis is aggravated by the state's funding formula, which works through reimbursements for each semester credit hour an institution generates. The reimbursements are supposed to cover costs related to instruction, general administration, library services, and general operating expenditures. Now, even though the Coordinating Board recognizes that "eighty percent of all Texas students are enrolled at the undergraduate level" (THECB 14), semester credit hours generated by master's level courses are reimbursed at twice the undergraduate upper-division rates, and reimbursements for doctoral courses are six-hundred times higher (Texas, AD03-Conf-3D, III-265). Semester credit hours for undergraduate lower-division classes are reimbursed at a rate that is half that of upper-division courses. Liberal arts courses like freshman composition and history receive the lowest funding levels of all lower-division categories. In fact, freshman composition courses are reimbursed at a rate 20 percent less than are vocational courses. For upper-division courses, English semester credit hours are reimbursed at two-thirds the rate for fine arts and sciences, and at half the rate for engineering and computer science courses. UHD is primarily an undergraduate institution, with limited master's degree programs. So the funding formula, which reinforces the separate and unequal delivery of educational funds and services, is a key example of "all hat and no cattle."

Intensifying the crisis is the shifting philosophy of public higher education, in Texas and across the U.S. public higher education has generally been regarded as a "public good," necessary for the social and economic health of our society. But in its 2003 session, the Texas legislature redefined higher education as a "personal benefit" purchased by students as part of the rationale to deregulate tuition and fees at public schools. Not coincidentally, perhaps, there is substantial political pressure being exerted by upper- and middle income parents whose children attend highly selective private preparatory high schools to redesign or revoke Texas H.B. 588, the "Texas Top 10 Percent Law," which was enacted to provide automatic admission to Texas's public universities for graduates in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, and thus ameliorate low access rates from rural, poor, and inner-city high schools (Niu, Tienda, and Cortes 1). The objecting parents believe that their children are being denied access to top Texas schools while entrance is given to students of "lesser" ability, and "argue that SAT scores are a better measure of students' abilities" (Glater 2), without addressing numerous studies that challenge that claim. The Top 10 Percent Law does not impact UHD because the vast majority of our students are academically "average." Besides, most of our students cannot afford the costs to attend Texas flagship institutions: the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A & M University at College Station.

In line with their reconceiving education as a personal benefit, Texas legislators kept their promise not to raise taxes. But they did increase fees, and deregulated tuition at public universities, advising the schools to use tuition increases to replace the budget reductions. In seeking support for this policy, UT chancellor Mark G. Yudof offered "free tuition for all Texas families with annual incomes below the state's median [of] $40,000" (Potter, A25-26). UT increased tuition by 30 percent, spring semester 2004, but no free tuition plan was in place for the needy students. UHD very reluctantly raised tuition 36 percent. Though UHD is still the most affordable university in southeast Texas, raising tuition makes it increasingly difficult for its many poor and working-class students to obtain an education.

Deregulation did require that 15 percent of the revenue from tuition increases be set aside for financial aid, but the way it did so is disturbing. The financial aid set-aside funds for a "graduate-on-time program," in which low-income students would be given not grants, but state-sponsored loans that will be forgiven if they graduate within four years. Although these loans are interest-free, they nonetheless replace grant money which did not have the condition that a student graduate in four years. This plan was pushed by UT Chancellor Yudof, who described it as a "rebate for good behavior." But the average UT student takes five years to graduate (a figure consistent with the national average), and at UHD that number is 7.5 years. Most of our students are products of the George W. Bush/Rod Paige "Houston Miracle," which means that nearly 50 percent of them come to college under-prepared and must enroll in developmental courses--automatically adding a semester or a year to their degree plans, and thus making it nearly impossible to earn the "rebate for good behavior."

The offer, then, of these "forgivable" grant replacement loans is a cruel joke for UHD students. To add to the cruelty, this program, funded out of tuition increases paid by students attending public colleges and universities, can also be accessed by students at Texas's selective private colleges, which do not contribute to the fund. In effect, tuition paid by the poor and working-class students at public universities is subsidizing aid packages for students at Baylor, Rice, and Southern Methodist. And exacerbating the burden for low-income Texas students is the legislature's elimination of sizable grants awarded to low-income students who had completed a specifically defined "college preparatory" high school curriculum.

Employment also works against graduation in four years. Most UHD students work at least part time. More than 35 percent work full time, many enrolling in evening or weekend classes and taking less than the "full credit load" for which traditional and nonworking students enroll. At UHD, the number of minority students who graduate has been increasing every year, but "retention and graduation" are defined in Texas as continuous enrollment and graduation within six years. Many UHD students stop-out for a semester or two so they can work and earn enough money to re-enroll. Once they stop-out for more than one semester, even if they re-enroll, they are statistical drop-outs forever. So UHD, understandably, has one of the lowest "retention and graduation" rates in the state, and we are not regarded as "successful," although our 7.5 year average is better than the national average (eight years) for working, low-income students.

UHD students could graduate more promptly if they had the financial aid necessary to work fewer hours and devote more time to their classes. There are two significant barriers to financial aid at UHD and similar universities: awareness and availability. A recent Harris Poll showed:

   an "information divide" in families'
   knowledge about financial aid.
   Among those making less than
   $50,000 per year, 60 percent said
   they needed more information
   about how to pay for college, versus
   37 percent of those making
   more than $75,000 per year....
   Additionally, 66 percent of
   African-American families and 62
   percent of Hispanic families said
   they did not have enough information
   about financial aid, compared
   to 44 percent of white parents.
   (Hoover, A39)

As the worst funded Texas university, we are unable to hire outreach counselors to advise incoming students of aid possibilities. On the other hand, neither do we have much aid to distribute. Our endowment provides about fifty full-tuition scholarships per year, and since UHD cannot pursue new external donations without first obtaining permission from the University of Houston system, we can do little or no fund-raising to supplement our financial resources and offer adequate aid to our working class students.

In addition to barriers imposed or tolerated by Texas, the national system of financial aid privileges expensive, private institutions, as against places like UHD. The New Fork Times noted that "the federal government typically gives the wealthiest private universities, which often serve the smallest percent age of low-income students, significantly more financial aid money than their struggling counterparts with much greater shares of poor students" (Winter 1). For example, the median amount of federal aid received by all colleges and universities is $14.38 for every financial aid applicant, but Brown was given $169.23 and Stanford $174.88 (Winter 2). Colleges with good social and political connections, and those more adept at lobbying, have always benefited most. Similarly, in the distribution of Pell Grants, the federal aid program for the nation's neediest students, "the median college [received] an extra 7 cents" for "every Pell dollar one of its students" was awarded, but "Harvard got 98 cents and MIT $1.42, while the City University of New York received just "4 cents on the dollar" (Winter 3). Compounding these inequalities is the declining value of Pell Grants. In 1980, a Pell Grant covered 77 percent of the cost of attending a public four-year college; today Pell Grants cover only 40 percent of those costs (Shea 22). And the trend toward increased reliance upon student loans as a means to pay for college acts as a barrier for many low-income students. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that "over the past decade, grant aid has increased by 85 percent in real terms, while educational-loan volume has grown by 173 percent" (Farrell A36). What is not said is that much of the grant aid is distributed not on the basis of need, but on the basis of "merit," thus benefiting middle- and upper-income students. Needless to say, UHD's income from federal financial aid sources is below the median. We do not have enough state, federal, or institutional funding to provide sufficient aid for the large numbers of students who qualify. So they work, and they graduate not in four years, or six years, but in seven or eight. That they do graduate, that they overcome significant economic and personal obstacles to do so, remains a statistical "failure" for us, under current Closing the Gaps criteria. UHD was founded as, and continues to be, an open-admissions university, and it will continue to provide students with the best education possible, in spite of shrinking resources. We will continue to applaud their successes, their completion of degrees so very important to them and their families. But we will do this work in a hostile educational climate. That climate bodes ill for all of us who endorse access, affordability, and diversity in higher education.

As disturbing as these inequalities are, if political rhetoric is any indication, we may be facing an even more extreme battle: a battle for the very existence of public funded education. While the views of state representative Debbie Riddle of Houston were reported with disbelief and jest on PBS, we are not laughing in Texas. What Riddle said was frightening: "Where does this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight from the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country" (El Paso Times 14 March 2003:8). It may be tempting to write Riddle off as an outlier, but we do so at our peril. The most basic philosophies that underlie higher education in the United States are being revised under the guise of budget crises, in nearly every state in the nation.

It is worth noting that financial aid and access are not the only problematic issues raised by political agendas for academe. The very definitions of diversity and academic freedom are being hijacked, as conservatives allege that "universities are totally dominated by the left" (Horowitz quoted in Lazere 1) and advocate for an education "that reinforce[s] conservative dogmas, which they regard as self-evident truths, not as biases" (Lazere 3). Georgia adopted an Academic Bill of Rights "to promote intellectual diversity and academic freedom" as a form of "affirmative action for conservatives [who] coyly evade admitting that all of the branches of universities devoted to serving corporations, the lucrative professions, and the military job training and research--which vastly outweigh the humanities--also indoctrinate students in pro-management, anti-labor, anti-government (but pro-military) ideology" (Lazere 1, 2). So the cuts in support for low-income students described in this article collaborate with the conservative "academic freedom" agenda. The press for "accountability" on these two fronts threatens ever wider gaps--in access, in affordability, and perhaps even in the desire for college education.

Maybe Debbie Riddle was right; the concept of equality is "straight from the pit of hell." Given opponents like these, those of us who value equality must fight to hold our state and national lawmakers accountable for the cuts they have made in funding for public education, especially those cuts that diminish opportunity for underrepresented students and threaten to move public education backward several decades to a time--a time not that long ago in Texas when separate and unequal was law.

WORKS CITED

Farrell, Elizabeth F. "Public-College Tuition Rise is Largest in 3 Decades: State Budget Cuts Blamed, But Aid Eased the Burden, Says the College Board." Chronicle of Higher Education 31 October 2003: A1+.

Glater, Jonathan D. "Diversity Plan Shaped in Texas Is Under Attack." Chronicle of Higher Education 13 June 2004. Online.

Hebel, Sara. "Colleges Eye Discounts on Tuition to Change Student Choices." Chronicle of Higher Education 19 September 2003: A13-A14.

Hoover, Eric. "Pushing the Envelope: Financial-Assistance Companies Mail Enticing Offers, But Educators Question Whether They Deliver." Chronicle of Higher Education 50.8 (2003): A39.

King, Michael. "Capitol Chronicle: Nothing from Nothing Leaves Nothing." Austin Chronicle 31 January 2003. www.austinchroncile.com/issues/ dispatch/2003-01-31/ pols_capitol.html.

Lazere, Donald. "The Contradictions of Cultural Conservatism in the Assault on American Colleges." Chronicle of Higher Education, Chronicle Review 2 July 2004. At www.chronicle.com/weekly/v50/ i43b01501.htm.

Niu, Sunny, Marta Tienda, and Kalena Cortes. "College Selectivity and the Texas Top 10 percent law: How Constrained are the Options? Paper presented at the 2004 annual meetings of the Population Association of America, Boston, MA.

Potter, Will. "Texas Legislature Gives Public Colleges the Power to Set Tuition." Chronicle of Higher Education 13 June 2003: A25-A26.

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, The. "Closing the Gaps: The Texas Higher Education Plan." Austin. Available at: www.thecb.state.tx.us.

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, The. "Special Provisions Relating Only to State Agencies of Higher Education." AD03-Conf3-D, Section III, 28 May 2003: 265-267.

Shea, Christopher. "Five Truths About Tuition." New York Times 9 November 2003, Section 4A: 20-22.

United States. Code of Federal Regulations. 34 CFR Ch. VI (7-1-03 edition), [section] 668.164.

University of Houston-Downtown. "Fall 2003 Fact Sheet." 9 November 2003.

Winter, Greg. "Rich Colleges Receiving Richest Share of U.S. Aid." New York Times 9 November 2003.