New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities committed to college opportunity for new jersey citizens

150 West State Street, Trenton, New Jersey 08608                       609-989-1100     609-989-7017 fax                   njascu@njascu.org

College Reforms Pay Off

Darryl G. Greer, Executive Director/CEO
Paul R. Shelly, Director of Communications

Trenton Times

November 27, 2006

The New Jersey Commission on Government Efficiency and Reform has been reviewing ways that the state can improve service and eliminate waste.  Higher education is among the areas under review.

The state colleges and universities are communicating with the commission.  Our association has already shared background materials that include indicators of state college efficiency, service expansion, and cost effectiveness and has outlined policy steps needed for further progress.

Despite years of lean funding, New Jersey's state colleges and universities have made huge strides and now serve more students than ever.  This has been possible because, 20 years ago, the state, with strong bipartisan support, enacted a law transferring important responsibilities from Trenton to the nine state colleges.

It seemed a daring move.  Institutions that had been regulated as state agencies were soon controlling their own missions, academic programs, finances and facilities, albeit within state guidelines.

Some worried that the institutions might fail at self-governance.  Some thought it would be wiser to create a state college "system" run by a single, multi-campus CEO and a consolidated board.  The prevailing view, though, was that the nine colleges would become more diverse, more distinctive and better able to serve the state under the direction of their own trustees and administrators.

Moreover, the law placed accountability for policy regarding educational and public service closer to where that service is being delivered: on campuses.  This was no radical idea; it is consistent with American higher education's historical advantages including academic diversity, innovative spirit, freedom from political intrusion and wide-ranging opportunity.

This decision, made with the educational good of the state in mind, neatly complemented a state incentive grant program that rewarded public colleges for further developing academic specialties and strengths.

Bolstered by additional deregulation under the 1994 Higher Education Restructuring Act, the nine state colleges and universities have accomplished the extraordinary.  Collectively, they serve far more students than ever before.

The institutions now award 14,200 baccalaureate degrees annually, compared with about 8,700 in 1986, about 45 percent of all such degrees conferred in New Jersey.

Deregulation paved the way for state colleges to achieve the following hallmarks of accountability and achievement:

This progress has been achieved at a time when state support per full-time student has declined and when institutions have had to shoulder the costs of new academic buildings and urgently needed renovations.  The result: our institutions have far more debt than peer institutions nationally and less capacity to meet growing demand.

Amidst real concerns about public accountability at various New Jersey agencies and institutions, public officials may be tempted to revisit the matter of state oversight.  It is unclear precisely how much bureaucracy and regulation might be under consideration.

It would, however, be a grave mistake to return to a Trenton-driven, top-down, one-size-fits-all structure.  It is New Jersey students who gain, because each college and university has different academic strengths and special programs, not just different locations.  Central control will discourage mission diversity and not necessarily help with efficiency.  New Jersey students will suffer if more central control translates into blandness and mediocrity.

New Jersey citizens, who appreciate the need for excellence and choice, understand this.  For example, when asked with whom they would entrust new funds for higher education, polls conducted in July 2005 show that likely voters strongly favored reliance on non-partisan state college/university trustee boards, as opposed to state government bodies.

College trustees and presidents understand well the need to address affordability, capacity and workforce preparation challenges ahead.  However, they need to make decisions among competing priorities amidst reduced government support.  Such challenges should not be underestimated.

State colleges should indeed be made accountable for even greater levels of service.  However, the state must first set well-defined expectations of higher education, complete with a funding commitment to help meet them.

Institutions should be able to rein in tuition increases.  But to do so, the state must invest more in the institutions' operations and facilities and provide more than the current state college/university average of 46 percent of educational costs (compared with about 70 percent 20 years ago).

More state regulation, with the attendant risks of political intrusion, mediocrity and diminishing direct citizen oversight through trustee boards, is a double-edged sword.  It could undo two decades' worth of progress.

However, under the current structure, citizens can make sure that state colleges and universities keep the public trust.  They can follow decisions made at open public meetings; they can urge the governor and Legislature to keep trustee board appointments nonpartisan; and they can ask the state to set clear goals for institutions of higher education and commit to a rational investment plan to achieve them.