Editorial: Universities are more investment than cost

It is of more than passing interest that, the day after Morris News Service reported the interest of some state legislators in "raiding" University System of Georgia funding to deal with likely significant state revenue shortfalls in the coming fiscal year, this newspaper reported the purchase of a University of Georgia-based biotechnology startup business by an Australian company.

The two stories served only to bolster a point made by University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll Davis during a Monday visit to the UGA campus. In remarks on the state's budget issues and the ongoing fallout for the University System in a half-hour session with local media, Davis suggested that in the governmental budgeting arena, investments of public dollars sometimes can become confused with costs of public services.

In talking about raiding University System funding, lawmakers who entertain that option - even as it likely would be coupled with a tuition increase by the University System to make up any lost funding - are making exactly the mistake Davis suggested, in that they are conflating investments with costs.

Certainly, there are significant costs associated with the state's 38 percent share in funding the University System. But those costs can, and should, be seen properly as investments in the state's future. The purchase of BioInquire, which designs computer software for analyzing proteins and works out of UGA's Georgia BioBusiness Center, is an example of an economic development opportunity incubated on a University System campus.

And, there are broader ways to look at state spending on the University System as an investment. As Chancellor Davis also noted Monday, "The public needs to know, if this system continues to sustain massive cuts, then we cannot provide the doctors, the teachers, the accountants that this economy will need to grow in the future."

In addition to sounding a needed alarm on the potential costs to the state in

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