Higher yearning: Hank Brown has improved CU's image and boosted fundraising, but the departing CU president says 'sea changes' are needed for state colleges to regain adequate support.

• Author: Dubay, Keith
• Position: Hank Brown improves University of Colorado

The snow settles on the spindly tree branches on the still University of Boulder campus this February morning, while inside the Wolf Law building, Hank Brown drills the five students who have braved the previous night's storm to attend his legislative law class.

Despite barraging his students with questions, Brown doesn't employ the Socratic method. He never bullies, never belittles them if they don't know the answer. Brown is too accomplished a communicator for that. He cajoles, but if the answer isn't forthcoming, he supplies it himself and always ends each topic with a teaching thought. And frequently, there's that Hank Brown moment, the wry grin and smiling eyes that signal the humorous zinger he's about to deliver, filled with irony and a slight hint of the sardonic, to make a simple statement loaded with meaning.

It is the same smile he used with a special Republican joint Senate-House caucus on Capitol Hill earlier that month, when in lobbying for increased money for higher education, he admitted, "I'm not too comfortable bringing this message to this group."

Brown is describing a higher-education scenario in which the system may be hard pressed to recover from years of a legislative starvation diet. He warned the Republicans that one more economic downturn, and higher ed in Colorado likely would take a further 50 percent hit in state funding.

That's on top of a $74 million cut in state funding during the last five years, leaving Colorado ranked at 41 percent of its research institution peer average, while coming in at 120 percent above the norm in tuition and fees per college student, according to the Colorado Committee on Higher Education. Among Colorado's four- and two-year colleges, the comparisons aren't much better.

Brown, 67, must be equally uncomfortable in the environs of his day job as he was with state Republicans, that of a reformer inside the University of Colorado, where, as he describes, he leads by "making choices and committing yourself to action," not by the academic culture of decision by consensus. That he brings unpopular messages to both audiences is a measure of the man's willingness to help the higher education system.

Brown earned a reputation as a fiscal conservative during his one term in the U.S. Senate representing Colorado and five in the U.S. House representing the 4th Congressional District. His resume also includes six years in the Colorado Senate. He came to CU after serving as president of the University of Northern Colorado and president and CEO of the Daniels Fund foundation respectively.

Brown, who took office as CU's interim president in August 2005 and was voted in as the permanent appointee by the regents in May 2006, surprised many earlier this year when he announced he would resign early in 2008. Even when he departs CU, he likely will remain Colorado's most esteemed statesman, ideally suited for championing the needs of higher ed as he did in the push for Referendum C, which allowed the state to keep up with some of the growth in the state. During that campaign, it was Brown, leaders of that campaign say, who "moved the needle" of public opinion in the polls.

And yet, his continued involvement is not a given. That involvement comes conditionally, with a caveat that may be impossible to achieve and could dash the prospects of Brown leading a possible higher ed campaign to state voters.

HOW HIGHER ED GOT IN THIS MESS

Higher education is not just dear to Hank Brown's heart; it is mother's milk to business.

Despite less state funding, Colorado's research community has been reaping big gains. CU brought in $640 million last year ($381 million of which was spent last year), a 10 percent increase. Colorado State University, the state's other research university, knocked down $267 million in research dollars. CU points to 40 businesses alone during the last few years that have sprung from its labs.

However, during the past five years, Colorado slipped from No. 3 to No. 9 on the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's ranking of new technology states. The author of the report cited lack of support for higher education. What's worse, Colorado ranked third in the nation in the high school dropout rate, according to one 2001 study, and 31st in the nation in high school kids going to college--any college--in another study.

"I've had companies tell me, 'We haven't looked at Colorado for five years because you're systematically dismantling higher education,"' says Tom Clark, executive director of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

Colorado's tangle of constitutional amendments, led by TABOR, or the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, put a chokehold on the only two significant places the state Legislature could cut after the recession of 2002-05 depleted state coffers by 17 percent: transportation and higher ed. Former Gov. Bill Owens, whose legacy is one of a builder of highways (ColoradoBiz, October 2006), and other Republicans such as former Senate Majority leader John Andrews, favored transportation at the expense of higher ed.

Why cut the knees from under such an important economic generator?

Entitlement programs representing two-thirds of the state budget were hogging most of the money--programs such as prisons, Medicaid and...