Let’s imagine that the House and Senate Finance committees both decide that they cannot trust the University of Alaska Board of Regents to do its job, and do not allow the board to streamline the university system, instead putting UA on a starvation diet beginning July 1 of this year. If you’re thinking budget cuts like what the Conference Committee on the State Operating Budget has put forward are a good idea, try looking five years into the future. Imagine the state of Alaska without a public university, because these cuts will begin the process of starving the UA system to death.
Five years from now, small businesses in Anchorage are struggling because too many of the students that they would have hired left the state to pursue their education Outside. Their parents are now spending money on out-of-state tuition for college kids in the Lower 48, benefiting those states and institutions, not Alaska. When those students settle down in Washington, California, Arizona, and Colorado after graduation, they call mom and dad to move out there, see the grandkids more often, and leave Alaska too; forever. The Last Frontier is no longer a destination for opportunity-seekers, but a place left destitute by a rapidly-fleeing population.
Five years from now, big businesses are rotating workers up from out of state, and considering the cost of pulling out altogether. Hospitals, which will be unable to rely on homegrown nurses to care for patients, are burning through profits on “travellers,” out-of-state workers that cost 2-3 times the rate of a normal employee. Malls, shopping centers, music teachers and grocery stores are going out of business; there just aren’t enough people here to support them, and with the young folks fleeing left and right, the future looks bleak. Dave and Buster’s is probably regretting expanding their operations in Alaska, too: the Legislature gave them a rapid rubber-stamp to open up shop, but with so many people looking elsewhere for opportunities, Alaska looks like a poor investment choice.
Five years from now, towns across Alaska are dying. If Anchorage sounds bad, consider Fairbanks. The university is ingrained both socially and economically here; massive cuts would decimate jobs, and leave behind a ghost town reminiscent of the post gold-rush bust. Juneau, as always, is buoyed up by the state Legislature and their continued spending on themselves, but even they cannot escape all of the effects, as UAS shutters more and more programs, sending students Outside just as surely as the rest of the state. There is no development of rural Alaska, no planning for the logistics of Arctic waters open year round, no research into the economic and social potential locked in the hundreds of thousands of untapped acres across the rapidly emptying state.
Five years from now, international students and their families are ignoring Alaska entirely. Sen. Pete Kelly’s crusade to allow all weapons on UA campuses — for dubious principled and practical reasons — combined with few programs and opportunities for students have cemented Alaska’s reputation abroad as a place fraught with danger and uncertainty. Seeing Alaska’s natural beauty doesn’t mean you’re going to get a good education or job, so our international prowess has taken a significant hit.
This future doesn’t have to become a reality. You can stop the Legislature from making this mistake. The University of Alaska is the only economic driver for this state that doesn’t rely on natural resources. If we want a state with a future, we need the university system to build human capital, retain the young people that build families in Alaska, and contribute something to the state’s long-term wellbeing. Call your legislators, testify at committee hearings, and show the Legislature that we need a university to move forward, that they need to ensure stable funding so we all have a future here.
• Jonathon Taylor is a political science major at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), outgoing President of the Union of Students, and member of the UAA Graduating Class of 2016
• Sam Erickson is a Finance major at UAA, and President-elect of the Union of Students. He will represent over 18,000 UA students during his term over the 2016-2017 Academic Year.
