Christie Keeps Cuts to Higher Education on Table
Increase in State Deficit May Require "Sacrifice"
Claire Hedinger, Statehouse Bureau
Star Ledger - December 15, 2009
Gov-elect Chris Christie, who campaigned to boost state funding for higher education and called past levels of support "deplorable," will not rule out further aid cuts to public colleges and universities in his first budget.
Following a meeting at Rutgers University yesterday with the leaders of several colleges and universities, Christie said he hopes to avoid cuts but "in this first year there's going to be a lot of shared sacrifice."
He said his transition team now estimates next year's budget deficit at $9.5 billion -- up from $8 billion projected earlier this year by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
"Other things will feel that brunt more quickly than higher education will, but I can't make a flat-out commitment that it won't be cut," Christie, who takes office January 19 told reporters.
Calling higher education a "top priority," Christie said he still plans more spending over the course of his four-year term. He declined to give a dollar figure of what is necessary, but said more money is needed to counteract tuition levels that discourage New Jerseyans from staying in the state for college.
"It is an investment in our economy both in the short term and the long term," Christie said, adding New Jersey ranks in the bottom three out of 50 states for its investment in higher education. "We're going to change it. We're not going to change it overnight."
In this year's $29 billion budget, Gov. Jon Corzine initially proposed a 5 percent cut to higher education, but was able to plug the hole with $40 million in federal stimulus money. To qualify for public aid, Corzine and lawmakers required colleges to raise "tuition rates and required educational and general fees" by no more than 3 percent.
That helped produce the lowest rate of tuition increases at New Jersey public colleges in more than 20 years, according to an August Star-Ledger survey. Students at public four-year schools faced an average of $11,036 in tuition and required fees, a 3.6 percent increase over last year. Prior to that, tuition had grown by an average of 7.4 percent each year since 2005.
There is no guarantee there will be more federal stimulus money for higher education for Christie's first budget, due in March, said Darryl Greer, executive director of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Greer said more cuts in state aid could have consequences for tuition, enrollment, staffing and other areas at public colleges, which can no longer "trim at the margins." But he stressed colleges are realistic about the budget crisis and look forward to working with Christie.
"They know what he's inheriting, and it's almost an impossible list in terms of this state's dire financial conditions. And higher education's got to be a helping hand, not a hat in hand," Greer said.
Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex), chairman of the higher education committee, said he would push for a similar cap on tuition and fee increases in next year's budget if there are more cuts. He said he reluctantly agrees with Christie that aid has to be "on the table."
"It's easy during a campaign to criticize, and now it's time for a reality check," Diegnan said. "There is nothing more important for the future of our state and our country than properly funding higher education."
Rutgers University President Richard McCormick, who joined Christie in New Brunswick at the meeting of the executive board of the New Jersey College Presidents' Council, thanked Christie for his four-year commitment. But McCormick said he and fellow college presidents are "struggling" financially and "concerned that the year ahead is shaping up to be even tougher than the year we're in now -- and that's saying a lot."
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