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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Robinson

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2-8-2006

HB

SHORT TITLE NMHU International Student Recruitment

SB 436

ANALYST Dearing

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

$100.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

New Mexico of Higher Education Department (NMHED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 436 appropriates $100,000 from the general fund to the New Mexico Highlands Uni-

versity Board of Regents for the purpose of enhancing the university’s program to recruit inter-

national students at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $100,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2007 shall revert

to the general fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

SB436 provides funding to expand NMHU's International Student Recruitment program for

marketing materials and scholarship initiatives for the recruitment of international students.

SB436 contains a $100,000 General Fund appropriation that the New Mexico Higher Education

Department (NMHED) considers this funding to be non-recurring. For FY06, NMHU's Interna-

tional Student Recruitment program received a $38,000 General Fund non-recurring appropria-

Senate Bill 436 – Page

2

tion contained in SB190, Laws 2005, Ch. 34, 47th Legislature, 1st Session.

However, this request was not on the list of FY07 priority projects submitted by NMHU to the

NMHED for review and was not included in the Department’s funding recommendation for

FY07.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

NMHU has not provided data regarding how this funding appropriation is to be administered.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

Relates to: HB2; HB7; SB1

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

In our research of this bill, NMHED used the most recent data available from the Fall 2004 se-

mester to compare the number of enrolled international students at all state colleges and universi-

ties (two-year and four-year institutions) with those enrolled at NMHU. The data showed a total

of 1,782 international students were enrolled in state colleges and universities with 78%, (1,384)

in graduate programs and 22% (398) in undergraduate programs.

In reviewing NMHU’s international student enrollment for this period, the university had a total

of 38 students (30 graduate and 8 undergraduate). This corresponds to 2.2% international gradu-

ate students and 2% international undergraduate students statewide. NMHU primarily offers un-

dergraduate degrees which may make it difficult to recruit a critical mass of international gradu-

ate students. Twenty-five of NMHU’s international graduate students were concentrated in such

fields of studies as: Business Administration and Management; General Biology; and General

Chemistry. As for the 8 undergraduate international students, 3 were in General Chemistry with

the rest comprised of a single individual in Accounting; General Communications; General

Computer/Information Sciences; General Finance; and General Psychology.

Subsequently, the data showed that NMHU does not offer the types of major course studies that

are attracting the bulk of international students (both graduate and undergraduate) to New Mex-

ico. In the areas of the hard sciences and engineering, most international students are enrolling at

the state's three research universities: New Mexico Tech, University of New Mexico (UNM), and

New Mexico State University (NMSU).

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

NMHU’s International student recruitment program will remain in its current state.

PD/mt