Colleges Want to Teach State A Lesson

Diane D'Amico, Education Writer
Atlantic City Press, September 17, 2008

In 2002, Rowan University began charging students a $300 annual facilities fee to help cover the cost of new construction.

This year students will pay more than $1,000 to help pay the $16 million annual debt on new science and education buildings and other renovation projects.

With no state funding for college construction since 1988, public colleges are relying heavily on their other primary source of revenue -- students -- to pick up the cost.

Now Rowan and the eight other state colleges are hoping to enlist those 95,000 students, their parents, more than 500,000 alumni and the businesses that hire them in a lobbying effort to bring more attention to higher-education issues in New Jersey.

"We have to find other ways to pay for this," Rowan President Donald Farish said.

On Tuesday, the members of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities kicked off the "Nine Strong for a Stronger New jersey" campaign at Thomas Edison State College.

Their goal is to promote the value of the state colleges to residents and the state economy, in the hopes of giving higher-education funding a higher priority in the state.

College officials said that while they believe state legislators understand the importance of the colleges, they still end up at the bottom of the funding barrel at budget time.  State aid was cut 10 percent for 2008-2009.

"The good will has not translated into political policy," Thomas Edison President George Pruitt said.

College officials have been lobbying on their own for a decade, but recognize they have been an easy target for budget cuts since they can raise tuition to compensate.  They hope that by enlisting students, parents and business leaders, they can develop a little more clout.

"We are trying to go straight to the public," Pruitt said.  "We haven't done that before." 

Montclair State University student government President Ronald Chicken said when his father attended the college in the 1970s, the state subsidized 70 percent of the cost.  State aid today funds just 27 percent of his cost.

"The state has left the students to build their own institutions," Chicken said.

A coalition of college student trustees hopes to get students more active as a voting bloc to get legislative attention.  "Students have not been taken seriously because we don't vote in large enough numbers," said Mike Strom, a student trustee at The College of New Jersey.

The presidents signed a pledge with several goals:  to help find new state and private funding to expand programs and reach more students; add more housing to accommodate all students who want to live on campus; help ensure students graduate in four years; develop new partnerships with business; and report annually on students' status after graduation.

Richard Stockton College's acting President David Carr said the college's aviation research park project with the William J. Hughes Technical Center and Rowan's South Jersey Technology Park are examples of how colleges are working to bring more jobs to the state, and generate revenue for the colleges to help offset tuition.

"It's about diversification," Carr said.

Stockton added a construction fee for students in 2005 to help cover growing costs of its more than $100 million construction campaign.  A full-time undergraduate student currently pays about $550 a year for that fee.

Farish said the primary issue is not just student costs, but the entire state philosophy on higher education.

"Why do we have higher education?" he asked.  "We want to show this is not just about parents and students, but about their children and grandchildren and the future of the business in the state."

The other participating colleges include Kean University, New Jersey City University, Ramapo College, and William Paterson University.