Education must improve, Manning says
The chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents didn’t try to sugar coat his assessment of the state’s higher education system Thursday while addressing the Noon Rotary Club.
‘I think we can do a whole lot better than we’re doing now,’ said Dr. Charles Manning. ‘We are not educating nearly enough Tennesseans to have the competitive workforce we need in the world economy.’
The Tennessee Board of Regents oversees six universities, including Tennessee Tech and MTSU, 13 community colleges, including Motlow State, and 26 technology centers, including the one in McMinnville. It has approximately 185,000 students and an overall budget of about $2 billion.
Manning says it’s always a challenge to define the Board of Regents and he’s found the best definition is this: ‘It is all public higher education in the state of Tennessee that is not orange,’ said Manning.
Manning said one of the main challenges Tennessee faces is getting its middle-of-the-road students to continue their education after high school. The top-tier students are likely going to pursue a college degree and get the education they need to move forward in life, Manning said. It’s the middle third that can get lost in the process.
Often they aren’t eligible for lottery scholarships and lack the initiative to start college and continue until they have a degree, according to Manning.
‘They are critical to our communities and the backbone of our communities, but they can’t afford higher education,’ said Manning. ‘We need more of this middle third to be better educated and develop higher levels of skills.’
Manning told a story about a trip he made to a town in Oklahoma around 15 years ago. He said a person in that town was keenly in touch with the community’s needs. The man said the school system there didn’t care about the A and B students because they’re going to leave town and not come back. The C and D students are the ones who are given top priority.
When Manning asked why, the man responded, ‘The C and D students grow up, stay right here, and become school board chairs.’
Keeping higher education affordable is crucial to maintaining enrollment. Unfortunately, Manning said Tennessee higher education recently received an F in affordability from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
‘In my seven years in Tennessee, I’ve found Tennesseans like low taxes and they want to keep them this way,’ said Manning. ‘This is challenging for higher education.’
When the state decreases its portion of higher education funding, the Board of Regents has no choice but to make up the difference with a tuition increase. In the late 1980s, Manning said the state paid roughly 60 percent of the cost of higher education with tuition making up the final 40 percent. Now it’s about a 50-50 split, he said.
Manning mentioned the following Tennessee statistics as troubling:
‘ For every 100 ninth-graders, only 14 go on to earn a bachelor’s degree.
‘ Half of all students who enter a school in the Board of Regents system will drop out before completion.
‘ Tennessee funds K-12 education at 79 percent of the Southern regional average.
‘ Only 17 percent of students taking the ACT test are ready for college-level work in the four most important subject areas ‘ English, algebra, social sciences and biology.
Manning said communities can’t wait for help from state or federal governments to bolster education. He said school systems at the local level need to focus on the middle third of students as part of their basic infrastructure.