Official says ENMU will continue to seek more fairness in funding

While a funding increase for Eastern New Mexico University represents progress in correcting funding inequity, ENMU’s Chief Financial Officer Scott Smart said Friday that ENMU will continue to seek more fairness in state college funding formulas.

A more generous New Mexico State Legislature improved Eastern New Mexico University’s per-full-time-equivalent-student funding by $452, or 5.6%, in its 2022 session, a total increase of $1.7 million more per year.

The legislature’s 2022 supplemental allocation is in addition to appropriations of $700,000 during the 2020 session and the and $400,000 during the 2021 session, Smart said.

That will bring ENMU’s annual regular funding to about $31.8 million, up from about $30.1 million per year.

Even with per student funding raised to $8,557 per student, however, ENMU’s funding is still far short of the state’s 2021 per student average of $10,654 among the seven New Mexico state-funded four-year colleges.

“Our goal is to bring our per-student allocation up to $10,000 per year,” Smart said, adding that ENMU plans to continue to press for correction in the formula that the state’s Higher Education Department (HED) uses to calculate funding among the state’s four-year colleges.

Smart said the 2022 legislature also directed HED to form a committee to study the funding formulas and possibly make them more equitable.

“They need to fix our base,” Smart said, meaning the regular appropriation the legislature approves each session for ENMU.

To reach ENMU’s goal, however, Smart said, the state would have to increase the college’s annual funding by $7 million.

According to a chart that Smart assembled, ENMU’s 2021 allocation per-student was the state’s lowest. The highest allocation of $18,890 per student in 2021 went to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. The second-highest per-student allocation, $13,916, went to Northern New Mexico College in Espanola. The second-lowest, $9,913 went to Western New Mexico University in Silver City.