(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It is sometimes said that the future comes first to California, but I wonder if in one particular case it is coming first to Alaska. By drastically reducing funding for its university in order to protect the annual checks it mails to its residents, Alaska is showing a depressing lack of commitment to the kind of dynamism that America needs more than ever but seems increasingly unable to summon.
Recent budget cuts to the state’s university system will bring a 41% reduction in state funding, a 17% cut to the system’s overall budget, which could lead to the layoff of 1,300 of its 6,600 employees. At the very least, scholarships will be cut, tenured faculty will be terminated, some academic programs will be eliminated, and perhaps one of the system’s three campuses will be shuttered.
And the financial losses will go beyond the cuts in state funding, as federal contracts will be harder to come by, donors may stop giving, and many potential students will look elsewhere. The university is hoping that the state legislature will override the governor’s veto, but a lot of the damage has already been done.
To be clear: I would not have made these cuts; I would instead cancel the planned increase of the so-called Permanent Fund Dividend, which comes from investment earnings on mineral royalties, that Alaska sends to residents each year. But rather than engage in hand-wringing and moralizing, I’d like to consider more dispassionately exactly what will be lost and why.
One criticism of the cuts is simply that Alaska will lose a lot of its young talent, as more students will go to college in other states and perhaps not come back. That might be bad for Alaska, but it may well be good for the students who leave — and for the states where they end up.
Nor do I find the elimination of departments troubling per se. Alaska has about 737,000 people, and it is distant from the U.S. mainland, taking three and a half hours to fly from Fairbanks to Seattle. It is not obvious that the state should be offering a full-service university. A possibly cheaper alternative would be for Alaska to subsidize tuition for its residents at universities in nearby states, such as Washington.
In general, I agree with my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Smith that universities are good for economically developing regions. But maybe Alaska is destined to have an economy based on natural resources, the military, seafood exports and tourism. Maybe the gentrification and educational upgrading that have come to, say, Austin, Texas, just isn’t possible in Alaska. The long-run tendency for Americans is to move south for warmer, sunnier climates, and the cost of living in Alaska is especially high and likely to remain so.
I see Alaska’s decision as reflecting two broader trends in the U.S. First, a lot of small educational institutions are closing, consolidating or drastically cutting back, most of all in out-of-the-way places. Second, regions are diverging, both economically and culturally. More and more educated people are moving to the major cities.
You may have mixed or negative feelings about these two developments. Taken together, however, they could lead to a bunch of state schools on the chopping block. I suppose it’s fine to complain about this outcome, but far better would be to address the underlying trends.
There are things government could do if it were bold enough. How about a series of state-specific visas to foreigners, designed to encourage them to settle in Alaska and other underpopulated states? Alaska’s population could well rise to more than a million, and then the benefits of a good state university system would be more obvious, including for cultural assimilation. In fact, how about a plan to boost the population of Alaska to two or three million people? What would it take to get there?
That’s my biggest worry in all this: that that the diminution of the University of Alaska amounts to a kind of giving up. Alaska is supposed to be the American frontier, a place for taking chances. It is a sign of defeatism if the state has now decided that its main task should be mailing out dividends to its residents. The animating spirit should be one of science and exploration, as might be enabled by a well-functioning university system.
The University of Alaska in Fairbanks is rated among the world’s top science institutions for studying the Arctic, a region that might well grow considerably in importance, in part due to climate change. A well-developed and well-educated Alaska is a kind of option on future Arctic development and also on geopolitical influence. If new frontiers are opening up, then Alaska — and America — should want to be ready for them.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. His books include "Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero."
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