State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

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.”

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

College Considers Working Overtime to Ease Financial Strain

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:19:00 GMT

Facing $4.5 million in budget cuts, Kean University in New Jersey is seriously considering “working overtime” by extending its academic week to Fridays and Saturdays, according to an Inside Higher Ed article (“Solution To Financial Woes: More Classes?” May 7, 2008).

The proposed solution is one of several being considered as the school faces a potential 17-to-24-percent tuition hike next year. It would offer tuition discounts for students who take classes on those days to help keep the tuition increase to a single digit figure.

Kean University officials say the proposal would allow the school to better use the classrooms the administration already pays to operate seven days a week. They estimate that on Fridays alone only 13 percent of general-purpose classrooms are being used at any given time.

But not everyone is happy about the proposal.

In fact, Kenneth Sanders, associate provost for academic affairs, says that many professors are wary of the changes. He also admits that the response to professors being asked to work overtime on Fridays and Saturdays has been “mixed.”

Critics of the plan claim that neither students nor faculty were consulted during the process, a pattern that has emerged before at the school under similar circumstances.

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Student Loan Blog : college budget cuts

State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed

College Considers Working Overtime to Ease Financial Strain