Southern Nevada leaders considering five higher education priorities

A group of community leaders that has spent months brainstorming policy priorities ahead of next year’s legislative session is almost done rounding up a higher education wish list.

Overseen by a panel of lawmakers that include Assemblywoman Olivia Diaz and Assemblyman Derek Armstrong, the higher education committee of the Southern Nevada Forum last week came up with five proposals aimed to boost the region’s postsecondary achievement.

The Southern Nevada Forum — a group of about 150 stakeholders whose members include a mix of business leaders, elected officials and school administrators — plans to whittle down the list to three when the full forum convenes May 5.

Here are the five proposals its members will consider:

• Make the Silver State Opportunity Grant a permanent program and modify a rule that requires recipients to take 15 credits per semester to qualify. The college aid program — Nevada’s first need-based grant — has received widespread support, but the credit requirement has been criticized for hurting students juggling college with work and family obligations.

• Continue funding UNLV’s nascent medical school and continue funding graduate medical education programs at public and private medical schools in Nevada. The group says it wants lawmakers to prioritize the state’s physician shortage and ensure UNLV’s medical school will get funding beyond the startup costs it received during the 2015 legislative session.

• Revise the state’s higher education funding formula to boost community college budgets. A formula approved two years ago by legislators sought to re-balance funding among Nevada’s higher education institutions. The new model was designed to equally share money among schools in the north and south using weighted student credit hours, giving less money to schools where fewer students complete their coursework. But administrators at CSN — the state’s biggest college — say that model has badly reduced budgets for open-access schools serving students who are more likely to drop out of their classes.

• Support efforts to boost workforce development programs, with a priority on community college initiatives. Workforce development will likely be a key legislative focus next year, driving Gov. Brian Sandoval’s signature issue: diversifying Nevada’s tourism-dependent economy.

• Fund capital building projects for UNLV, the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College. (CSN President Mike Richards recently presented a proposal for a new state-funded $43 million health sciences building at the school’s Henderson campus.)

Contact Ana Ley at aley@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512. Find her on Twitter @la__ley