TCNJ Faces MAJOR State Budget Cuts

Governor Jon Corzine delivered his annual state budget address on March 21, 2006, in Trenton. The $30.9 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2007, which begins July 1, 2006, contained particularly bad news for the higher education community, as the governor proposed drastic cuts to base appropriations as well as the elimination of several vital programs.

“This is the biggest cut anyone can remember,” Darryl G. Greer, executive director of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities for the last two decades, explained to the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 22. “You won't be able to find another higher-education system in the country being asked to do something like this.”

Under the governor’s proposed budget, support for the higher education sector would be reduced by more than $169 million in total, and there would be no funding provided for the mandatory employee salary increases that were negotiated by the state—$122 million. This would result in The College of New Jersey losing approximately $8 million in base and salary program aid. TCNJ’s appropriation would be slashed from $38 million in the current fiscal year to $34 million in fiscal 2007, with another $4 million in salary funding lost if the state budget is adopted in its current form.

TCNJ President R. Barbara Gitenstein said, “If these cuts are implemented, they would be devastating. TCNJ enacted a very lean budget this year in order to keep our tuition increase as small as possible, and it was below those of other state colleges and universities. That required significant belt tightening, but it was worth it to defray some of the burden from our students and their families. Our moderation this year, however, could make any response to this round of budget cuts even more challenging.”

Unlike in years past, student aid programs were not spared from the state budget carnage. While the Tuition Assistance Grant program garnered a modest increase, the Outstanding Scholar Recruitment Program (OSRP) was eliminated, beginning with the freshman class that will enroll this fall. “OSRP helps keep New Jersey’s best and brightest students in the state for their education and, ultimately, their professional careers,” Gitenstein said. “If it is phased out, we will feel the impact on this campus, and our state economy will suffer as well, because this will only exacerbate New Jersey’s tremendous ‘brain drain’ problem.”

Even Corzine, speaking to The Record of Bergen, acknowledged the potential ramifications of his proposal, saying, “The harshest cut is in higher education.”

Rutgers President Richard McCormick, in a Star-Ledger article, went so far as to say, “Even with significant tuition increases, cuts this large would require layoffs, cancellation of hundreds of classes and reductions to essential services for our students. Rutgers would simply not be the same university.”

Gitenstein, in an e-mail to TCNJ’s campus community, said the College would be planning for a range of scenarios, adding, “We must work to clear this hurdle together and the institutional priority will be supporting you, the people who have made us the best public college in the region.” She also encouraged students, parents, staff, and faculty members, and other TCNJ supporters to express their concerns about the proposed cuts in higher education funding to their representatives in the State Senate and General Assembly, as well as to the governor. TCNJ has launched a Web page (www.tcnj.edu/~ccr/news/2006/budget/index.html) that provides links to government contact information, in order to facilitate that effort.