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N ew E n g l a n d s H i g h e r E d u c at i o n C o m p a c t
H a s S t o o d t h e Te s t o f T i m e
MELVIN H. BERNSTEIN
Special agreements
An interstate compact is a constitutionally authorized agreement between
two or more states that is both recognized as a legally binding contract
and has the force of statutory law.
There are 192 interstate compacts
in force in the United States today,
including nine in New England,
according to the Kentucky-based
national Council of State Governments,
which tracks the agreements. In
addition to education, interstate
compacts cover the operation of
multistate port facilities, the distribution of regional river water among
states, energy management and conservation of natural resources. New
Englands compacts apply to water
pollution control, law enforcement,
health protection, dairy pricing,
trucking and emergency military aid,
as well as higher education.
The wide range of interstate compacts in use today enable states to do
in concert what they legally cannot do
acting individually. Most of those in
existence today were entered into during the period from the end of World
War II to the mid-1970s. Impetus for
Sharing resources
The governors who created the New
England Higher Education Compact
built four basic purposes into the
agreement: broaden educational opportunities for New Englanders; use state
education resources on a regional
basis to reduce tuition costs for out-ofstate students; avoid duplication of
high-cost education programs in the
states; and strengthen the regional
economy by producing more college
graduates in scientific, medical, engineering and technical fields.
The founding governors also gave
their successors good reason to stick
Short-term pressures
Despite the big tuition savings to New
Englands residents, capital cost savings to state governments and a record
of productive regional programs, the
compacts existence has been imperiled
from time to time by short-term budget
pressures in the largest states, namely
Connecticut and Massachusetts.
By way of background, each state is
represented on the NEBHE board by
eight delegates appointed by the governors and legislative leadership. Basic
funding to support NEBHE programs
is provided by the six New England
states through annual assessments.
The New England Higher Education
Compacts funding provision authorizes annual contributions based on
state population unless the board
adopts another basis for making its
budget recommendations to the states.
That base funding provision is largely
drawn from the nations first interstate
education compact, the Southern
Regional Education Compact, which
was formed by 15 southern states in
1948, and similarly relied on state population as the formula for funding with
the provision that another basis for
funding could be adopted, and indeed,
each member state now pays an equal
amount annually. That agreement was
followed by the Western Regional
Education Compact, which was
approved by 13 western states in 1953.
The western compact took a different
tack, requiring that annual operating
costs be equally divided among the
compacting states. In practice, NEBHE
has followed a midway position in exercising its budget responsibility, assessing an initial flat $10,000 fee to each of
its member states with the remainder
assessed on the basis of state population relative to the total New England
population.
The first challenge to the compact
arose in 1980 when the Connecticut
Legislature approved a bill declaring
that it was in its best interest to withdraw from the New England Higher
Education Compact and proceeded to
notify the five other states of that
intention. Seeking to establish an alternative to NEBHEs regionwide RSP,
Connecticut sounded out the other
states to see if they would enter into
separate agreements for student
exchanges instead of operating under
the regional compact. The member
states stood firm in their resolve to
uphold the compact, and a year later,
Connecticut lawmakers repealed the
withdrawal legislation.
The cooling-off period worked
just as the founding governors hoped
it would work for future generations:
The five other New England states
kept the regional program intact,
while bringing before the Connecticut
Legislature the facts demonstrating
that the compacts benefits far exceed
the costs of membership.
It did not take long before the cooling-off period was tested once again.
Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan officially
notified NEBHE and the five other
member state governors in June 1981
that his state intented to withdraw
from the compact, effective in two
years. Brennan based that decision
on our feeling that though beneficial,
the [NEBHE] program was not essential to our state ... The two-year
breathing period allowed NEBHE and
its Maine delegates to show the
Brennan administration and the state
Legislature the cost-benefit evidence
that led Maine to reverse its decision
in July 1983. Brennan declared in his
reinstatement letter that after evaluating his state's participation in NEBHE
programs, the legislative and executive branches of government have
concluded that Maine derives substantial benefits from membership in
the Compact, and that NEBHE was
both pursuing important priorities
and pursuing them effectively from
Maine's point of view.
The next major battle over the compact occurred in 1989 when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, a
Democrat, defaulted on payment of its
annual assessment after two years of
being in arrears. After much delibera-
Compacts compared
Curiously, none of the nations other
three regional higher education compacts have experienced either a default
or a formal notice of withdrawal from
any of their original member states.
Both the southern and western regional