OPINION: Kustra's advocacy for higher ed is much needed

If you want to get into the University of Illinois, it might help to know a now-defrocked governor or a convicted political player.

The school has reportedly passed over ordinary aspiring students in favor of applicants with political connections -- even to scandal frequent-fliers such as Rod Blagojevich and Tony Rezko. The story has persisted since May. On Wednesday, the ongoing mess cost President B. Joseph White his job; he will resign effective Dec. 31.

Normally this would just be some other state's bucket of rotting carp, if not for a paragraph tucked away in a Chicago Tribune editorial Thursday. "We can think of a strong candidate (for a successor): Boise State University President Bob Kustra, who is a former Illinois lieutenant governor and state senator. Kustra is a successful college president and he navigated Illinois politics with extremely high integrity. Illinois' premier public university will need a president who can handle the politics without succumbing to this state's breathtakingly corrupt political culture."

"Breathtakingly corrupt political culture?" You can't accuse the Tribune of rolling back the odometer. I'm not sure who of right mind and savvy management skills would want this gig. Then again, who'd want the same job at BSU, or any public university in Idaho?

Friday, Gov. Butch Otter announced one more round of spending "holdbacks" for higher education -- a $15.2 million slice out of an already shrinking budget. For Kustra -- who, through a spokesman, declined comment on the Tribune editorial -- budget cuts are a sadly familiar refrain.

After this holdback, the universities will have $238.1 million for 2009-10. Their 2008-09 budget, also whittled down by recession-driven holdbacks, came in at $266.4 million.

Friday was a truly ugly day for higher ed. The Otter holdbacks average out at 4 percent. Some agencies took a bigger hit; higher education took a 6 percent cut. BSU will use its own reserves to absorb its $4.7 million cuts. That's because Otter punted on the idea of using the state's savings accounts to keep higher education whole, even though he is recommending a $49.3 million withdrawal to spare K-12 from cuts.

Higher ed is on its own. What a deal. Kustra talks in lofty terms about trying to turn BSU into "a metropolitan research university of distinction." Maybe this year BSU should just aspire to be 6 percent less of a university of distinction. Fair is fair.

In a national recession, no university president can escape budgetary pressures by crossing state lines. Somehow, I doubt budgeting life is any easier for Tim White, who left the University of Idaho in 2008 for the University of California-Riverside.

So the challenges facing Kustra and his Idaho counterparts run much deeper than one budget crisis, regardless of its severity. The presidents face an ongoing struggle to get Idaho to rethink its priorities -- and recalibrate spending decisions to match.

Idaho undervalues higher ed. Period. Too few of our high school graduates go onto college. In 2007, only 31 percent of Idaho's 18- to 24-year-olds attended college, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The national average is 34 percent; the top-performing state, Rhode Island, came in at 50 percent.

Some numbers are looking up. Enrollment across Idaho's two- and four-year colleges has increased during the recession, by a startling 15,000. Adversity is forcing Idahoans to seek a degree or new job skills, a testimonial to the value of higher ed.

Still, when Kustra wants to get Idahoans thinking beyond the blue turf and the BCS to envision a first-rate urban university, he is challenging ingrained low expectations. He's challenging the notion that higher education is a budgetary afterthought, picking up the scraps left over after paying for public schools, prisons and Medicaid. He is seeking a commitment to higher education in good times and bad.

Cultures don't change overnight, no matter how persuasive and passionate Bob Kustra can be.

Throw in all the other "perks" of a president's job -- Idaho's deep-seated parochialism and an often politically charged State Board of Education -- and a scandal-ridden University of Illinois might look good.

Kustra made headlines a few weeks back when he called out Otter, albeit not by name, over his plan to raise insurance premiums for part-time state employees. At the time, he sounded a lot like a fiery leader, making a politically gutsy stand for 223 vulnerable employees. He also sounded like someone a little fed up with fighting the state's political culture.

Unlike his part-time custodians and clerical staff, Kustra is the beneficiary of highly public and likely unsolicited career advice. He has the whole Chicago Tribune editorial board looking out for him.

However, I refuse to give the Tribune the last word. My unsolicited advice to Kustra: Stay.

You're the kind of advocate BSU and Idaho higher education needs. You'd leave behind a great city and, for what it's worth, a better football team. More importantly, you have a terrific chance to help change the way your adopted state values a college education.

That's the good fight. See it through.

Kevin Richert: 377-6437