By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record.
A report issued on Thursday highlights New Jersey’s lagging investment in higher education, even as legislators – faced with a looming budget shortfall – have warned of the possibility of more cuts to come at the state’s colleges and universities.
New Jersey has cut funding for higher education by 23.5 percent since 2008 when adjusted for inflation, a decrease of more than $2,200 per student, according the report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank that represents liberal views.
These cuts have driven up public tuition and student fees in the state, which now range from $10,000 to more than $13,000 annually. The totals are among the highest in the nation.
The average tuition at a public, four-year college in New Jersey has increased by 13.5 percent, or $1,508, since the start of the recession, the report said.
“Public colleges and universities increasingly represent a burden, not an opportunity, to New Jersey’s middle-class families – and that’s a huge problem,” said Gordon MacInnes, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective and a member of Rutgers University’s governing board. “With the state’s support for college operating budgets flat after declining for many years, it is increasingly difficult to graduate in four years as required courses are over-subscribed or not offered at all.”
Governor Christie’s $34.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2015 contains $1.57 billion for higher education, an increase of nearly 7 percent. But lawmakers on the Assembly budget committee warned college leaders at a hearing this week that that number could be cut now that projections for an $800 million budget shortfall have materialized.
The funding for higher education was increased in last year’s budget as well and colleges benefitted from the rollout of $1.3 billion in bond money for capital improvements.
But, as was the case in many other states, the infusion came after a decade of disinvestment by the state that fueled tuition increases.
“My colleagues and I see New Jersey’s students saddled with debt and struggling to pursue the opportunities that higher education offers,” said Susanna Tardi, a sociology professor at William Paterson University and executive vice president for higher education of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey.
From: Bergen Record, May 2, 2014