Uses of Self-Support Funding

By CSU statute, self-support reinvestment funds must be used to expand, strengthen, and support a campus’s self-support programs. Since these programs vary, each will require a different configuration of reinvestments to maintain excellence. For example, if a campus offers self-support graduate degree programs or baccalaureate degree completion programs for working adults, then building the capacity of the relevant department(s) to offer those programs with distinction will yield a major return. That kind of reinvestment might allow a program’s faculty to keep current in the field in question. It can also facilitate the hiring of new tenure-track faculty—who, like their colleagues, might teach in both state-funded and self-support programs—so as to maintain the highest quality as a program grows.

A very practical use of reinvestment funds is to update specialized facilities or equipment. Another is to add books or computers to the campus library. Yet another, as a campus’s self-support programs grow and the demand for financial aid counseling and similar services also grows, is to increase relevant staffing.

Going forward, CSU campuses will have to consider their funding in more comprehensive ways—including dollars contributed to the campus, tuition and fee revenue; funds from grants and contracts; earned revenue from campus enterprises; and, of course, self-support reinvestment funds along with state support. Approaches that made sense when the CSU was more fully state-funded may now limit the financial agility and purposeful planning that will be required in the decade ahead. Changes may need to be made.