Boise State University President Bob Kustra, who is giving his budget presentation to lawmakers this morning, says BSU has increased the number of students choosing STEM majors - science, technology, engineering or mathematics - by 35 percent in the past four years. Fall 2010 enrollment was up 22 percent over the prior year, and in 2010, BSU produced 2,094 bachelor's degrees; Boise area residents with at least a bachelor's degree earn twice the wages of those without, Kustra said. BSU enrollment now is up to nearly 20,000 students by head count, he said, but state funding is falling. The average section size has jumped from 32 to 40 students. The university is "re-engineering and redesigning ourselves internally" to cope with the funding changes, he said.

“It has been a struggle and a true test of institutional character to advance as we have despite the dramatic reductions in funding over the last several years,” Kustra told lawmakers. “Our efforts have paid off, as evidenced in the quality of our educational offerings. But maintaining quality will become increasingly difficult with further budget cuts. We are coming close to a critical point in history where only those who can afford higher education will get it, just as we need an increased workforce knowledge base to maintain the recovery and global competitiveness.”

Kustra said tuition continues to climb, and there's no clear direction on where it's headed. "We're playing a game here with no end in sight," Kustra said. "We don't  have this clear indication of what you expect the cost of public higher education to be, and how it should be borne." He encouraged lawmakers to think about that long-term. Not knowing where it's headed, he said, "puts us in a difficult position," in which "decisions are made incrementally year to year." If the nation continues on that course, he said, "In the end I have no question that we will lose our pre-eminence across this globe of ours, when it comes to economic development, when it comes to ability to compete."