Money for the universities

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34012, 28 November 1975, Page 12

Money for the universities

In times of inflation university administrators might be expected to prefer annual' grants from the Government. Such grants could be increased each year; at present grants are arranged for periods of five years. But this year university administrators have again welcomed the convention of working to finances for the longer period. Managing with inflation under the block grants system may not he so very difficult because the grants are adjusted to admit increases in salaries and wages, and these make up about two thirds of the recurring expenses of the universities. Nevertheless the universities may be unable to make the academic innovations or improvements they would like to because other costs are rising while they remain on “ fixed ” grants. Their best opportunity to introduce new courses and to improve the standards of teaching and research comes when the numbers of people seeking admission to university stops increasing, or even declines. Predicting the fluctuations in enrolments is not easy because so many considerations weigh on the mind* of those thinking about going to university. The last 20 years have been years of dramatic expansion for the country’s universities. The grants announced this year limit major expansion In the period up to 1980 to a new school of architecture at Victoria University and more extensive medical education. No gaps exist, otherwise, in the subjects offered at university level in New Zealand as serious as those which existed even a few years ago, and sufficient places seem to be available at universities to meet the demand. In such circumstances the Government has properly asked the universities to trim their expenditures. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips) has set a good example for university administrators. He is not complaining that the grants are not large enough to continue the kind of expansion that has been typical in recent years. At the same time, Professor Phillips asserted that if the numbers enrolling at universities begin to rise rapidly again, the universities may be hard pressed to maintain standards of teaching and research towards the end of the decade. The universities may either have to make entry more difficult or they may seek supplementary grants from the Government. The virtues of the system of quinquennial grants would be lost if the Government had to deal frequently with competing demands from the various universities for additional funds. But the Government would be wise, particularly if the economy recovers, not to skimp funds for universities if a deficiency meant that a university education was less freely available to those qualified and needing it, or that standards in the country’s universities dropped. What is a reasonable course of action this year may not seem so in three or four years.