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State Rep. Isaac Choy’s recently introduced and deferred betrayed a narrow and destructive conception of the University of Hawaii’s purpose. Furthermore, it displayed a startling misunderstanding of the structure of higher education and represented profoundly irresponsible legislative overreach.

Choy proposed to eliminate all undergraduate programs that graduated less than 10 students a year unless the program was financially self-sustaining.

Ka Leo reported that among those programs which would have needed to prove self-sufficiency were French, German, Russian, Dance, Physics, Pacific Island Studies, Geology, Meteorology, Biological Engineering, and Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences. Also under threat of elimination were 11 of the 12 secondary education programs on offer.

The proposal was deferred, but in the future, Choy would do well to consider three things.

First, the number of program graduates is not indicative of utility or value to the University. There will never be a time when Meteorology students are more numerous than Business majors – we need fewer meteorologists than capable business leaders, and foreclosing the possibility of studying meteorology for this reason is irresponsible.

Further, some small programs represent new and emerging fields. Biological engineering is a rapidly growing field, stretching from alternative energy sources to environmental remediation techniques like wastewater treatment. Competitive research institutions across the U.S. are investing in fields like biological engineering despite the potential for losses in the short term.

The University of Hawaii, as a land-grant institution, has a responsibility to maintain programs that advance practical science and engineering to solve our most pressing challenges. Cutting programs like biological engineering undermines this responsibility.

Furthermore, the number of graduating students does not account for those taking courses outside of their majors. Our university is structured such that students may choose from a variety of courses outside their major. This pluralism is an important component of higher education.

The coexistence of smaller programs such as Physics with larger programs like Engineering is fruitful for interdisciplinary work. Believe it or not, programs do not exist in isolation at the university. They are interactive and interdependent.

Many students are required to take classes from these small departments in order to satisfy graduation requirements.

It’s not just about pluralism either; many students are required to take classes from these small departments in order to satisfy graduation requirements. From July 2013 to June 2014, the Physics department had six baccalaureate graduates. Any reasonable proposal must recognize this structural feature and consider that hundreds of students pursuing degrees in STEM fields rely on the Physics department to fulfill science requirements for their respective degrees.

Second, some programs have utility beyond generating financial returns. For example, the University of Hawaii is the only institution in the state offering programs in Tropical Plant and Soil Science.

However, the returns to society of investing in such a program may not be apparent from a glance at the university balance sheet.

Instead, value may manifest in subtle ways; our state may attract and retain faculty performing exemplary research, like Professor James Brewbaker who helped establish our largest agricultural industry – seeds – in the 1960s; or, a student of the program may pioneer the agricultural advance which lessens our dependency on imported food.

Third, closing small programs does not make economic sense for the University. If two programs are each losing $500 per student, it makes far more sense to close or reform the larger program rather than the smaller. Of course, this would produce greater resistance, but any bill proposing otherwise is a cowardly attempt to avoid confronting the real fiscal woes of the university.

It is certainly true that there are wasteful and inefficient programs at the University of Hawaii, and Choy’s foolhardy proposal didn’t necessarily target them. More important issues remain: maintenance backlogs, energy inefficiency, rapid tuition increases, and the increased class size and faculty workload wrought by the recent hiring freeze at our flagship Manoa campus. A braver politician would introduce legislation to address these larger issues, committing public funds where necessary and eliminating administrative glut.

All reform efforts should hold at their heart the preservation of a diverse learning environment, and any move to discontinue a program should occur only after careful weighing of costs and benefits beyond those on a balance sheet. Otherwise, we risk jeopardizing the larger project of higher education.