URI President Robert L. Carothers envisions such endeavors as research parks, spin-off companies, and a retirement community on the Kingston campus.

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 24, 2006

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- The old formula for financing higher education -- a mixture of state aid, student tuition and federal grants -- no longer adds up, says the University of Rhode Island's president.

So Robert L. Carothers wants to reinvent public higher education.

A decade ago, 28 percent of URI's budget came from the state. By last year that proportion had dropped to 19 percent. A recent study found that Rhode Island's overall investment in its public colleges and university has declined by nearly 50 percent since 1978.

States are pulling out of the business of higher education.

"We are in the middle of a shift going on across the country," Carothers said in an interview in his office last week. "The disinvestment in public higher education means a greater reliance on students and their families for tuition and fees."

It's a burden that fewer families can afford. In-state tuition and fees at URI cost $7,284 this year. Add the average room and board, and the price tag jumps to almost $16,000. Out-of-state students pay about $30,000 a year.

Instead of relying so heavily on tuition and fees, Carothers wants the state to give URI greater independence and the ability to generate its own cash.

"There is already a mismatch between our mission and our resources," Carothers said. "We are not [Providence College]. We are a land-grant institution and we have a responsibility to turn out research for the public good and to do outreach, with extension programs and so on."

But research is expensive, and URI is already losing lucrative projects to other universities because the state offers almost no matching funds.

"You cannot finance research off of tuition and fees," Carothers said. "And at a certain point, there's an ethical question about funding research from families in New Jersey," he said, referring to URI's high out-of-state rates.

Carothers says a good model is the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, which spun off as an independent state agency in the early 1990s.

"It would be hard," Carothers conceded. "The legislature would have to say URI could use its best strategies to generate money, that we could use the land here to create revenue streams that would support the university."

Laws governing public and private partnerships, such as research projects with Raytheon and Amgen, would have to be changed, as would restrictions on the bid process, Carothers said. Those proposals in the past have sparked concerns by watchdog groups such as Common Cause.

Carothers envisions research parks, spin-off companies and a retirement community on the Kingston campus. URI could open an equestrian center at Peckham Farm and perhaps expand the Boss Ice Arena.

He also thinks URI should expand to about 22,000 students, from about 15,000 now. There are many universities with much smaller campuses that educate more students than URI, he says.

"It won't happen in my lifetime," said Carothers, who is entering his 15th year as URI's president and recently signed a new three-year contract. "But to be more cost effective in terms of infrastructure, we need more economies of scale."

But before URI can expand, it needs to tackle the more pressing issue of financing, Carothers says.

"We have many tools, but right now, there are many barriers," he said.

jjordan@projo.com / (401) 277-7254