At a time when higher education funding is at a low, administrative costs should be a target for cutbacks, NIU Student Regent Nick Valadez said.

Valadez suggested the Regents reduce administrative spending in the Chancellor’s office and throughout the Regency system.

The Regency schools include NIU, Illinois State University in Normal and Sangamon State University in Springfield.

Valadez said areas for cutbacks could include the numerous assistant and associate positions at each of the univerisities and in the Chancellor’s office. Those positions might be justified when the Regency system is in good financial standing, but not when sufficient state funding for higher education is lacking, he said.

“I’m not against administrative expansion. I’m against it as a matter of priority,” he said.

Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves said although “it is appropriate to look at administrative costs at any time, to talk exclusively about administrative costs doesn’t make sense.”

The Regents have been efficient with money from the Illinois State legislature that the Illinois Board of Higher Education has appropriated to the Regency schools, Groves said. A large component in the amount of efficiency has been drawn from administrative costs, he said.

“We have done more for less for many, many years. Our universities have a good record in that regard.”

The efficiency in making due with little funding includes all of Illinois higher education, Groves said. “Over the last decade, higher education (in Illinois) has absorbed 40,000 additional students while getting along with less in constant dollars in the way of general revenue funding,” Groves said.

An efficiency record like that should be reassuring, he added.