Students ask legislators to avoid massive education cuts

Twenty-plus college students pleaded with legislators Friday to keep the higher education system's budget from being cut, which many said could end their chances of success in life.

Higher ed leaders were less pleading in making their case before a joint legislative committee -- though no less apocalyptic.

System Vice Chancellor Dan Klaich said the system cannot even plan for cuts as large as Gov. Jim Gibbons has proposed.

He said Gibbons' proposed cuts -- 36 percent systemwide -- would mean the elimination of one of the universities or all of the community colleges.

"There is no easy way to do this," he said to a joint committee, Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance. "These cuts would change the shape of higher education."

Michael Wixom, the chairman of the Board of Regents that governs the higher ed system, told legislators that the state's economy depends on a good education system.

He introduced Don Snyder, a former head of Boyd Gaming and a longtime UNLV Foundation board trustee.

Snyder, who is leading UNLV's capital campaign drive to raise $500 million in private money, said the state's higher ed system is not good enough. Cuts will make it worse.

"We cannot be satisfied with what we have achieved and we certainly cannot step back," he said.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, asked what a 36 percent cut would mean for the system's employees. Klaich said it would mean 2,000 would be laid off. That's about 28 percent of the staff.

"It's staggering," he said.

Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, asked about tuition increases. The governor has said he focused such large cuts on the higher ed system because it is the only major division of government capable of raising its own money.

Klaich, who has previously said it would take a tuition increase of more than 200 percent to make up for the cuts, remained noncommittal on what the system might actually do.

He noted that a 25 percent increase, discussed back in December, would raise about $50 million a year. Gibbons' proposal cuts $473 million from the system's budget over the next two years.

After the officials were through testifying, it was time for the students.

There was a UNLV student who said he was a reformed drug addict and needed his education to help other addicts; a College of Southern Nevada student who said cuts would hurt minorities most; a UNR student who said the state doesn't have enough college graduates; a Nevada State College student, a CSN professor, a grad student, an engineering student and many more.

A 40-year-old Nevada State College student said the small cuts that already have been made are devastating. More could kill his school, he said.

"Please help me," said the student, Brian Ottesen. "Help students like me."

Absent from the proceedings was Chancellor Jim Rogers, who had said he would be away on vacation. He has been in a public battle with the governor, most recently resulting in Rogers being reprimanded by the Board of Regents for his stinging comments about Gibbons.

Rogers is no longer allowed to talk to the governor, a situation that Sen. Bernice Mathews took notice of Friday.

Addressing Klaich, who has been appointed a liaison between Rogers and Gibbons, she noted the strange situation.

"There is no reason why the chancellor cannot come visit with us," she said. "We don't have the same restrictions on the chancellor."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.