THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300513
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 85 lines
A state economist on Thursday criticized the enrollment projections of the State Council of Higher Education as seriously flawed.
How important it is for the council to provide accurate enrollment estimates remains open to debate. But the critique expanded the discord and added to the politically charged atmosphere at the once-sedate education agency.
Longtime council director Gordon K. Davies' voice quavered as he defended his agency's track record. And council member George G. Phillips Jr. of Virginia Beach, who was bypassed as council chairman last month, vocally objected to a majority plan to modify the process for predicting enrollment.
``We obviously have experts in conflict with each other,'' said Phillips, chairman of a Norfolk insurance brokerage firm. ``Is there anything wrong with giving us some time to think about this?'' He was later overruled.
College leaders and legislators have worried that the new chairwoman and her allies on the council are attempting to micromanage university affairs and might be a front for Gov. George F. Allen to pressure Davies out of his job.
Unlike most state agency chiefs, Davies is hired - and can be fired - not by the governor, but by the council members, who are appointed by Allen. Davies has often been an independent voice in Richmond. For instance, he criticized the college budget cuts imposed by former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.
At Thursday's meeting, A. Fletcher Mangum, an economist with the state Department of Planning and Budget, said the council's projections tended to overstate enrollment because the agency ignored demographics outside Virginia and didn't do well in assessing changes in the number of transfer students.
Mangum said the agency's error rate for ``two-year-out'' projections is 6 percent, much higher than 1.3 percent for state Medicaid expenditure forecasts and 2.0 percent for Virginia revenue projections. The council ``is missing some critical variables,'' he said.
Enrollment at Virginia's state-supported colleges stands at roughly 183,000. The council once projected that it would increase to 227,000 in 2000, but its latest estimate, from April 1995, predicts more modest growth, to 206,000. Mangum said he couldn't offer an alternative estimate.
Davies and college leaders have cited the projections in requesting more money from the state for education programs and college construction. Yet council officials say enrollment shifts have actually had little bearing on funding changes since 1988.
In a speech after Mangum's remarks, Davies departed from his usual calm, relaxed demeanor at meetings. He rose to address the council members. His voice tight, he said, ``I do not believe the actions of previous Councils of Higher Education have resulted in the overbuilding of our system of higher education.''
Davies also recounted a story from former Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, who had been a close of Davies. The Democrat years ago received a complaint that the council had scaled back its estimate for the increase in college students in the '90s from 65,000 to 50,000. Andrews shot back: ``It doesn't make a difference; that's still a lot of students.''
In November 1995, an outside consultant, Dennis Jones of Boulder, Colo., offered concerns, similar to Mangum's, about the estimates. But Jones wrote: ``It is unlikely that (the) accuracy of projections can be improved much beyond the level already achieved.''
Even so, some of the council members have continued to question the accuracy of the estimates. Two members who have expressed the most interest in the question - Elizabeth A. McClanahan and Kate O. Griffin - have gained greater power in the past month.
In July, after Allen's appointment of three new members to the agency, the council narrowly voted to elect McClanahan as the new chairwoman over Phillips. All three new members, as well as Griffin, voted for McClanahan, an Abingdon attorney.
During that meeting, McClanahan ordered the enrollment review from the state Department of Planning and Budget. She also proposed the creation of council subcommittees to more closely monitor the work of Davies and his staff. Those subcommittees were approved over Phillips' objections.
Allen tried in 1995 to cut the state council's budget by nearly one-half and gain control to hire and fire the council director. But key legislators, who strongly support Davies, scuttled those changes.
McClanahan said Thursday that the goal of the enrollment review was not to browbeat Davies. ``Our intent is to get more accurate numbers,'' she said. ``We have required more accountability of colleges and universities, so we should require accountability of ourselves, too.''
Davies refused comment after the meeting, held at Christopher Newport University.
Also Thursday, Tidewater Community College officials appealed the council's decision last month to discontinue TCC's associate's degree in agricultural business and management because of low enrollment. The council will vote on the appeal at its October meeting.
KEYWORDS: HIGHER EDUCATION COLLEGE ENROLLMENT by CNB