Colleges Being Squeezed
The Record
April 11, 2010
In the annual game of Whac-A-Mole known as state budget negotiations, New Jersey's public colleges and universities have felt the cold smack of the mallet year after year after year.
Here we go again. Governor Christie has proposed cutting higher education funding by 15 percent. He's also demanding the schools cap tuition and fee increases at 4 percent. Any school that breaks the ceiling risks losing even more of the state's dwindling support.
Yes, it is a tough budget year, with an anticipated gap between revenues and spending of $10.7 billion. Cuts are needed. But incentives are necessary, too. Budgets need to be balanced, not bludgeoned.
The colleges rely on two sources for their revenues: state aid and student tuition and fees. The state has cut its support during seven of the last 10 budget years. During that decade, enrollment jumped by about a third.
So the schools raised tuition and especially student fees, which now total an average of $11,000. New Jersey's public colleges are now among the nation's least affordable. Students are toppling under academic debt. This is the wrong result.
Much like Christie's attention to state commissions, we wish he would examine how college presidents and trustees are managing their institutions. Rewarding well-run schools with more state aid, and punishing wasteful spending by limiting aid, would be a wiser approach than across-the-board cuts and caps.
The governor and Legislature also can help in other ways. State colleges and universities must hire some workers as civil servants or state employees, and so must pay them whatever Trenton negotiates -- including double raises next year. The colleges have lobbied to be freed from these requirements for years, to no avail. Christie and lawmakers should take a fresh look at this idea, which advocates say would save money.
In some cases, the schools haven't done themselves or their students any favors. We're thinking about luxury dormitories, corruption at UMDNJ and the multimillion-dollar goody bag of a salary for Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano. We're still waiting for a reasonable explanation for these bills.
Given the economy, Christie's proposal to impose tuition caps is understandable. Unemployment is at a historic high, and many workers are returning to school. It's the wrong time to ask students to pay significantly higher bills. Christie's proposal to cut aid also makes some sense, since virtually all state programs are taking a hit.
But taken together and without fine-tuning regulations the schools say bloat their budgets, these moves are another unfair whack.
Candidate Christie said he'd work with the colleges, to ensure that New Jersey's highly paid workforce remains just that. So far Governor Christie is merely putting on the squeeze. His surprise plan to shut down Thomas Edison State College, the state's public online institution, was merely a line in the proposed budget.
We need a longer-term view of how to fully support these schools, one that doesn't rely on the willingness of students to go deep into debt.
Source: http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/90555989_Colleges_squeezed.html