Just as the recession has taken a toll in other states, New Jersey state budget coffers are shriveling up as public colleges and other state-supported services are asked to do more with less.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s slashing of $173 million from public colleges and universities has drawn the ire of higher education leaders, educators and students and has forced the public schools to impose a 4-percent increase in tuition and adopt additional cost-cutting measures.
For some, the bad economy represents only a small aspect of the problems facing public colleges across the nation. While the recession has exposed chronic problems in financing public colleges, many argue that it will take more than an improved economy to solve these issues. The realization has some schools and states thinking more strategically about long-term reforms. New Jersey officials will unveil some recommendations designed to address issues impeding its higher education institutions.
“States have been disinvesting—not all states, but the state of New Jersey clearly—and many other states have been disinvesting in higher education for years,” says Dr. Darryl Greer, president of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges & Universities (NJASCU), a nonprofit advocacy group based in Trenton.
With the exception of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, NJASCU represents nine of New Jersey’s public colleges and serves nearly half of all the students attending the state colleges. The schools have seen their share of state dollars continually decrease while the state has maintained control over key regulatory measures.
“New Jersey has been headed in the wrong direction since the early 1990s,” says Greer. “New Jersey is literally financially bankrupt, and I am not using that term lightly.”
Greer argues that continuing to shift the burden for paying for state colleges from the state to the colleges and students while allowing the state to control key aspects of financial regulatory issues makes the state a “bad partner” and straps the colleges with state-negotiated unfunded mandates.
