RUSSELL: HIGHER ED WAS BADLY MANAGED

Missouri's public colleges and universities have been badly managed for decades and it's time schools get their house in order, says the president of the University of Missouri system.

"Higher education has been very badly managed academically and economically for the past 40 years," President George Russell said Monday.

Russell visited Cape Girardeau Monday as part of a trip through Southeast Missouri to promote the four-campus University of Missouri system.

In an interview at the Southeast Missourian offices, Russell spoke about the state of higher education in Missouri and touted recent changes that have been made at the University of Missouri.

Russell said colleges and universities must do a better job of using the state funding they receive. "You have no entitlement to taxpayers' money unless you use it wisely."

He said higher education in Missouri would benefit from having one board of regents or curators with responsibility over all the public colleges and universities. Currently, the University of Missouri system has a Board of Curators, and each of the other state universities and colleges has its own board of regents.

Russell said the state of North Carolina operates with one governing board.

Missouri has a Coordinating Board for Higher Education. "The coordinating board has a lot of responsibility, but no authority," said Russell.

In Missouri, he said, there's a lot of regionalism, with the various colleges and universities looking out for their own interests as opposed to higher education in general.

"We would do a better job if we had one board...running the whole educational show," he said.

Russell maintained that colleges and universities must do some "hard soul searching" on how they can improve and provide ways to accurately gauge their operations.

Russell, who has served as president of the University of Missouri system since November 1991, said the university has made major changes in its operations in the past two years.

"The University of Missouri is making the biggest voluntary change of any university in the country," he maintained.

Russell said the university is already ahead of schedule with its five-year plan, approved by the Board of Curators in March 1992.

The plan involves generating and reallocating $124 million throughout the UM system.

Russell said the plan calls for: paying competitive salaries to faculty; funding repair and building maintenance projects; replacing outdated, high technology and research equipment; improving the school libraries; increasing student financial aid; and meeting individual campus priorities.

The UM system has campuses at Columbia, St. Louis, Kansas City and Rolla, with a combined enrollment of about 54,000 students.

While student fees have increased, so has financial aid, Russell said.

"It is cheaper to go to the University of Missouri today than it was in 1963," he pointed out. That's because financial aid has grown dramatically.

Since 1987, the total aid awarded to UM students has more than doubled from $79.6 million to $165.6 million. Financial aid received by UM students from federal, state and private sources exceeds the total tuition and fees collected by the university, school officials have reported.

A few years ago, the four-campus system had about 13,500 employees. But that number has been reduced by about 1,300 through early retirement, layoffs and attrition.

As part of the personnel cuts, a number of administrative positions have been eliminated, including 115 positions in central administration, said Russell.

In the 1980s, the number of administrative personnel at the nation's colleges and universities increased by 26 percent while enrollment remained low, Russell said.

Schools can get by with fewer administrators, something that has been shown at the University of Missouri, he maintained.

In student services, for example, schools don't need to go overboard on staff positions, said Russell. "You don't have to put them to bed or blow taps or anything like that."