Administrators are hoping state lawmakers will reconsider their criteria for funding a revenue stream that often pours millions of dollars into university coffers but may dry up before the decade ends.
Rather than give the university money based on annual enrollment growth, as the Legislature has done nearly every year since the late 1950s, UA officials want lawmakers to allocate money based on academic performance.
A proposal under consideration would offer funding based on improvements in graduation rates, especially in programs most beneficial to Arizona, as well as enrollment in upper-division classes and high-cost programs.
The Arizona Board of Regents will weigh in on this possibility at its meeting next week, where university officials will offer alternatives to the current formula.
UA lobbyist Greg Fahey said the proposal that regents will discuss would fit with President Peter Likins' Focused Excellence plan, which emphasizes high-quality education and research, rather than continued growth.
"What we want to recognize is that we're going a bit of a different direction and we'll be emphasizing high quality education linked to the research mission of the university," he said.
Though the Legislature didn't offer enrollment growth funding last year because of the state budget crisis, it's a source that often brings in millions of dollars used for academic purposes like offering more classes.
In the past eight to 10 years, the university has generally received between 70 percent and 80 percent of its request for this money, said Budget Director Dick Roberts.
This year, the university calculated it would need $4.5 million to meet the need outlined by the formula, he said.
If the Legislature funds 70 percent of the request, the UA would receive a little more than $3 million this year.
But with an enrollment of about 37,000 students, the UA is slowly reaching what President Peter Likins has said he considers its maximum capacity - about 40,000 students.
When it does, perhaps within five or six years, the funding flow would cease.
So administrators are hoping regents and legislators will buy into the notion that the university should be rewarded for students' academic performance, rather than just their numbers.
Now, only about 55 percent of UA students graduate within six years, a number administrators say is too low.
They'd like to be rewarded for improving graduation rates, especially in areas like nursing, teaching, pharmacy and engineering, fields that are especially important in Arizona's economy.
They'd also like to see additional funding based on the number of upper-division and graduate classes, as well as high-cost programs like those in the sciences and health professions.
Those programs cost more because classes must be smaller, Roberts said.
Faculty in nursing, for example, will "look you right in the eye and say ... 'You can't put 22 students around a bed.'"
Universities and regents won't ask the Legislature to adopt these new methods this year, Fahey said.
"We're not trying to do it for this session," said Fahey, who believes that if regents and universities work to develop alternatives, the issue should be "ripe for next year."
Under the current formula, the UA receives funding to pay salaries for one faculty member, one-half of a support staff member, and one-fourth of a secretary for every 22 students enrolled beyond a weighted average of the previous three years' enrollments.
Over the past few years, as the state grappled with income shortages, the funding for enrollment growth was often among the first items in the UA budget that lawmakers considered cutting to balance the state budget.
Regents will offer their preliminary ideas about the proposal when the board meets Thursday and Jan. 23 at ASU.