Panel Calls on N.J. to Help Colleges

 

Inquirer (Philly.com)

Rita Giordano and Adrienne Lu (Inquirer Staff Writers)

January 4, 2011

 

New Jersey should increase financial support of its public colleges and universities and spare them from state-imposed caps on tuition and fees, according to a report released Tuesday by the state's Higher Education Task Force.

 

The task force, convened by Gov. Christie in May, also called for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) to be "fundamentally transformed."

 

The panel recommended that UMDNJ's Robert wood Johnson Medical School and School of Public Health merge with Rutgers University's New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses.  It also suggested putting UMDNJ's University Hospital, in Newark, in alternative hands.  The task force report called the medical university's central administration "organizationally cumbersome."

 

Acting on the panel's recommendations, Christie issued two executive orders Tuesday, one to form an advisory council to study graduate medical education in the state, the other to create a Governor's Higher Education Council.  The task force, led by former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, called for the elimination of the Commission on Higher Education.  The new council and a yet-to-be appointed secretary of education would replace it.

 

"Our future depends on education," Kean said at a Trenton news conference to discuss the panel's findings.

 

Christie acknowledged the state's lack of money to implement all of the task force's recommendations, but said higher education was among his priorities.  The state has 31 public institutions of higher learning.

 

"After 20 years of declining state funding and increasing tuition, it is time to put in place a short- and long-term strategy that recognizes our current fiscal challenges while taking achievable steps to strengthen higher education in New Jersey," Christie said in a statement.

 

Higher education received double-digit funding cuts in the current state budget.  In addition, Christie proposed a 4 percent cap on tuition and fee increases at four-year public colleges and universities that many education leaders said would hobble them further.  Under the plan, an institution that exceeded the cap would incur additional aid cuts.

 

On Tuesday, he pointed to measures in his proposed legislative "tool kit," including exempting them from civil service and collective-bargaining reform, that he said would ease colleges' burdens.

 

Among the other recommendations in the 134-page report, the task force called on the state to:

• Stabilize, and eventually increase, funding to Rutgers for operating and capital costs.

• Turn the state's merit-based scholarship programs -- NJ STARS, NJ STARS II, and the Coordinated Garden State Scholarship Initiative -- into a single, less costly program to help reduce the flow of New Jersey's brightest students to out-of-state schools.

• Have colleges and universities provide more higher-education opportunities to students still in high school and increase collaboration with businesses to encourage research that could boost the state's economy.

• Issue bonds to pay for capital improvements to colleges and universities.

The report also said that school districts must do a better job.  In the fall of 2008, 70 percent of incoming full-time county college students had to take a remedial course, at an instruction cost of $70 million annually, according to the task force.

 

Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick applauded the recommendation to bring the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School into his university.

 

"Such a union would create a national academic powerhouse that would significantly enhance the quality and profile of new Jersey higher education and would benefit residents across the entire state," he said in a statement.

 

UMDNJ spokesman Robert Forman took a different view.

 

"We are confident that a comprehensive review of UMDNJ and its mission will support maintaining our current structure and underscore our strengths as a statewide asset for New Jersey and its residents," Forman said.

 

With adequate state support, he said, "UMDNJ can be a model 21st century university as envisioned by the report."

 

Speaking to the overall report, Darryl Greer, head of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, said that achieving its recommendations would be a "huge step" toward preserving public colleges' affordability and access.

 

Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) complained Tuesday that Christie is a year into his term without a secretary of higher education.  But Assembly Higher Education Chairwoman Pamela R. Lampitt (D-Camden) said she was pleased by the report's release.

 

"Hopefully, this signals that Gov. Christie is at last ready to show a commitment to higher education and making it more affordable for working-class New Jerseyans," she said.

 

Contact staff writer Rita Giordano at 856-779-3841 or rgiorano@phillynews.com