States across the country are grappling with declining state revenues and corresponding declines in appropriations to higher education.  Now, new data shows that this round of cuts may take longer to restore and produce major changes in the makeup of the faculty.

A study released this week by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) shows that while state higher education funding tends to be cyclical, this round of budget cuts will take longer to restore than earlier ones. 

While in the 1980’s, 76 percent of funding cuts to higher education were restored within five years, now only 40 percent are.  The data also revealed that states imposing large tuition increases to cope with funding cuts took longer to recover since legislators see that those institutions are able to cover their operating budget in other ways. 

Across the country, many states felt they had no choice but to pass dramatic increases to tuition over the past two years.  Just this week, the University of Virginia board approved a 9.9 percent tuition hike for in-state students and the Virginia Commonwealth University board approved a 24 percent tuition hike.

Cuts are changing more than just the cost of education as more states freeze hiring and move away from tenure track positions.  At the University of Minnesota, the number of non-tenure track faculty members increased by 15 percent since 2003 and the number of tenure-track faculty decreased by 20 percent. 

Faculty members granted tenure are essentially granted a career-long contract to teach and research at the University.  This status allows them to comfortably take on long-term research projects and gives them more freedom to pursue controversial issues in their research and teaching.  However, tenure positions provide a university with less budget flexibility since they tend to cost more and are difficult to remove. 

Officials at the University of Minnesota worry that the trend of eliminating tenure-track positions will ultimately make the University less competitive and less attractive to students. 

Tenured faculty members tend to take on more of the long-term research projects that attract large grants and prestige and have more teaching experience.  Because they tend to spend their careers at that campus, tenured faculty are also in a better position to develop new programs and courses. 

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