State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed
Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University who seven
years ago promised to make ASU “The New American University” and to
grow the school’s enrollment to 100,000 students by 2020, could see
his plans go unfulfilled because of state budget cuts, reports The
New York Times (“State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions,” March
17, 2009).
Since last June, ASU has lost $88 million in state funding, which
amounts to 18 percent of the university’s base budget.
“The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered
American University,” the Arizona school’s student newspaper
editorialized last month after ASU announced it would be eliminating
more than 500 jobs, closing 48 programs and requiring remaining
employees to take 10 to 15 days of unpaid leave this spring.
While ASU students said they believe school president Michael Crow
is doing his best to protect them from further funding cuts, they
also said the state’s budget cuts will negatively affect the quality
of their education.
ASU Not Alone, Colleges Struggling Nationwide
Public colleges across the country are experiencing layoffs, salary
freezes, and even enrollment reductions as they grapple with
shrinking state funding in the current recession.
The University of Florida recently eliminated 430 faculty and staff
positions, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently laid off
around 100 employees, and the University of Vermont has eliminated
16 positions, left 22 faculty positions vacant, and frozen the
salaries of certain staff, The New York Times reports.
And California’s higher education system, which serves 3.3 million
students — nearly 20 percent of college student nationwide — is
among the nation’s college systems hardest hit by this recession.
Both the University of California system and the California State
University system have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in state
funding and have been forced to shrink their enrollment numbers.
“What’s happening, everywhere, is what’s happening to Michael Crow,”
said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on
Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an
organization that studies college spending. “The trend line is
states disinvesting in higher education.”