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State Isn't Doing Enough to Keep College Costs in Check

Darryl G. Greer

Executive Director/CEO

Asbury Park Press

September 13, 2006

Making higher education more affordable is chief among the concerns addressed in a recently released (August 9, 2006) report of the U.S. Commission on the Future of Higher Education.  The report calls upon states to provide incentives to institutions to help keep costs down through increased efficiency and use of technology.  A great many of its suggestions make good sense, but they need to be understood in a local and historical context.

Back in the 1970s, some New Jersey college graduates may recall, the State of New Jersey paid the vast majority of educational costs at state colleges.  Tuition was nominal.

By the early 1980s, the state, as a policy matter, decided it would make sense to require parents and students to bear a fixed share of the costs of state college education.  The vision was that if students could be a more significant funding partner, state colleges could grow, diversify, and improve quality, better serving all.  This decision echoed similar policy created in other states.

The State Department of Higher Education settled on a 70% state/30% tuition-and-fees guideline.  Under this model, student tuition and fees would only grow incrementally in proportion to the state's ability to likewise add more dollars for educational operations.

In the early 1990s, the state was starting to face budget difficulties, and could not afford to sustain the increasing investment in higher education needed to keep up with its 70 percent of the bargain.  As educational costs rose, tuition had to be increased out of necessity; the state failed to match increased spending, and more often than not it failed to fulfill ever-increasing state obligations for employee salaries negotiated by the state.  The state also stopped funding capital improvements at public colleges, placing even more pressure to fund facilities through student fee increases.

State budget problems and the pattern of erratic state support continued throughout the decade.  State colleges and universities learned to live on leaner educational and facilities funding from the state; they increased efficiencies and they reluctantly raised tuition and fees more than they would have otherwise preferred.  By Fiscal Year 2005, the share of costs borne by state and student got to be, roughly, a 50/50 proposition.

All this history explains how we got to where we stand now.  As of the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years, the lead role that the state once had in funding educational costs at state colleges, and the supporting role that students and parents played, has inverted.  Students now pay about 55 cents on the educational expense dollar and the state pays 45 cents.

This comes at a time, unfortunately, when enrollments and demands are at record highs, and New Jersey shows signs of slippage in the competition with other states for knowledge-based jobs.

In effect, the state is gradually reneging on its responsibility to provide broad access to a four-year public college education.  New Jersey's inability to invest is far out of step with the rest of the nation.  For documentation, one need look no further than a 2006 report for NJ Policy Perspective by Anastasia Mann and Mary Forsberg called "Flunking Out: New Jersey's Support for Higher Education Falls Short."  The report cites a steady drop in support for higher education from 9.8% of the state budget in 1983 to about 5.3% currently.  What's more, a just-released report of the National Conference on State Legislatures singles out the Garden State, with a 2.5% drop in appropriations, and Texas, with a 0.7% drop, as glaring departures from the average 6.3% growth nationally in general fund support for higher education between FY 2006 and FY 2007.

With this year's budget cuts, it won't be enough to continue to find more efficiency.  Already, these institutions are recognized by the National Center on Higher Education Management Systems in a 2005 report, as being among the most efficient of their kind in the nation.  Institutions have raised tuition, once again, more than they would have if the state was increasing, rather than decreasing its investment.  Programs will also be cut at some schools, including some that, if not absolutely essential, do benefit New Jersey residents.

The worst thing four-year public higher education advocates can do is keep silent at this time and pretend that this major shift has not happened.

New Jersey is not living up to its obligation to share the costs of funding quality state colleges and universities.  We now have among the highest four-year public college/university tuition rates in the nation.  We are cutting back at a time when other states are investing in higher education.  It is time for the State of New Jersey and colleges and universities to work together more closely.  Here is what needs to be done:

Collectively, we need to find a way to keep student costs from further escalation, while preserving the quality that keeps tens of thousands of New Jersey students regularly knocking at our doors, and which ensures that our citizens and the state will compete and prosper.

New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities was created by the State in 1985 as a policy advocate for the state colleges and higher education.  Its nine institutional members are: The College of New Jersey, Kean University, Montclair State University, New Jersey City University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Rowan University, Thomas Edison State College and William Paterson University.