This is a guest opinion column

What provides a better education: a waterslide, an airport terminal, coal unloading equipment, or a college? The answer “a college” seems like a no-brainer, but that is not how Governor Kay Ivey sees it. The State of Alabama is fortunate to have a surplus of $2.7 billion in the Education Trust Fund this year. The question for our elected officials in Montgomery is how to use it to support education in our state.

Birmingham-Southern College has requested one-time bridge funding of $30 million to allow the college to stay open while it replenishes its $200 million endowment, which is on track to be completed by May 2026. However, Birmingham-Southern was not one of Governor Ivey’s priorities in deciding how to spend the Education Trust Fund surplus. Governor Ivey’s proposal, found at https://governor.alabama.gov/assets/2023/03/R-Senate-ETF-Supplemental.pdf, includes at least $331 million for projects and expenses unrelated education. A few notable line items are:

• $25 million to the Montgomery County Commission to bail out the over-budget Montgomery Whitewater recreation facility
• $31 million to the Mobile Airport Authority to move a terminal from west Mobile closer to downtown
• $25 million to the Port of Alabama for coal loading and unloading equipment, among other things

I suppose Governor Ivey thought we would not notice if she slipped these “pet projects” in among the worthwhile education programs in her proposal for how to spend the education surplus. It would be hard to keep a straight face when arguing that some of these proposals are “educational,” especially in light of Birmingham-Southern’s request, which has a direct impact on both education and economics in the state of Alabama.

Birmingham-Southern is the only nationally ranked liberal arts college in Alabama in 2023 as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Do not be misled by the phrase “liberal arts” which has nothing to do with politics. Instead, it is used to describe an education focused on critical thinking and analysis, complex problem solving, ethics and morality, and lifelong learning. Birmingham-Southern serves a diverse student body from all political backgrounds and walks of life. About 30% of current students are the first members of their family to attend college and approximately 90% of students receive some form of financial aid. If Birmingham-Southern did not exist, these future adults would either leave Alabama to find education elsewhere, or else never realize their dream of a college education.

Providing bridge funding to Birmingham-Southern would not only help individual students, but would also ensure the continued flow of millions of dollars to the state each year. A study by an independent economist has found Birmingham-Southern has a direct economic impact of $97.2 million each year on the State of Alabama’s economy. In addition, over half of Birmingham-Southern’s 17,000 living alumni live, work, serve, and pay taxes in Alabama.

On Monday of this week, Governor Ivey’s office responded to Birmingham-Southern’s request for one-time bridge funding by saying, “The state has no plans to use the taxpayers’ public funds to bail out a private college.” Instead, she plans to use hundreds of million of dollars from the Education Trust Fund for clearly non-education related projects, some of which, like the Montgomery Whitewater park, are private.

The Education Trust Fund was created for the noble purpose of, in the words of the Executive Budget Office, “the support, maintenance, and development of public education in Alabama, debt service and capital improvements relating to educational facilities, and other functions related to educating the state’s citizens.” Helping Birmingham-Southern stay open while it raises the rest of the funds it needs is directly related to educating the state’s citizens, and is, by far, the best use of the Education Trust Fund surplus.

Jennifer Precise is a Georgia native and graduate of Birmingham-Southern College. She relocated to Alabama after graduation and attended the University of Alabama School of Law. She and her husband Scott, also a Birmingham-Southern graduate, live in the Birmingham area, where she practices law. Their daughter is currently a freshman at Birmingham-Southern.