Budget cuts jeopardize Georgia colleges

Funding for the HOPE Scholarship is not the only thing that is in financial trouble. Chancellor Thomas Meredith told the House and Senate Appropriations Committee last week that the percentage of the state budget going to colleges in Georgia is at its lowest point in over 35 years.
“When it comes to higher education, what has taken decades to build can be taken down in just a few short years,” Meredith recently said in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In the past few years, spending per student has declined 17 percent in the state of Georgia. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Meredith estimated $300 million in spending cuts since November 2001, and called the booming college enrollment combined with those cuts a “deadly combination.”
Meredith recently went before the House and Senate Appropriations Committee to make a presentation on the fiscal year 2005, which will begin July 1. Under Perdue’s recent proposals, the university system’s budget will amount to approximately 10 percent of total state spending next year, down significantly from other years.
“The university system’s share of the FY04 total state budget was 11.3 percent – the lowest for the system since 1967. And if you add in this year’s budget recommendations, you would see that the percentage would drop to 10.55 percent,” said Meredith.
Meredith also said that between FY99 and FY04, enrollment in the system increased 23 percent, but funds to Georgia colleges increased by only 7.67 percent. The result of this gap is a $253 million budget cut to the University System of Georgia.
“We have approached these cuts thoughtfully and carefully. That approach has led us to develop budget principles in consultation with our presidents and the Regents. Our priority in these principles is to protect the classroom. Let me repeat that: we protect the classroom first,” Meredith said.
Even though the classroom is protected, many jobs in the university system are not. Schools have been unable to fill about 1,000 faculty positions system-wide because of a lack of money.
“Budget cuts hit college campuses particularly hard because our budgets are so salary-heavy. In most budget areas, colleges have very few discretionary operating funds that could be reduced. The only way to make these cuts is to reduce faculty and staff and freeze vacant positions as they become open,” said Dr. Bruce Harshbarger, vice president and dean of students at Georgia College & State University.
So, what exactly does this 2005 fiscal year budget cut mean for the future of GC&SU?
“One of GC&SU’s first strategic moves, after being designated the State’s Public Liberal Arts University, was to push for funding to create additional faculty positions. The goal was to bring our student-faculty ratio down to 17:1, which would be consistent with other schools in the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges,” said Harshbarger. “The state legislature agreed to fund $3 million toward this end if the university would match it by generating funds on our own. Half of that $3 million was provided to GC&SU’s budget before statewide cutbacks put the remainder on hold. Small class sizes and close personal attention from faculty are key characteristics of the liberal arts approach, and the availability of a USG institution that provides such a student-centered experience is critical to Georgia.”
However, even with massive cuts to next year’s budget and jobs that cannot be filled in the university system, Meredith remains positive about the future of education in Georgia.
“There is no question – the budget pressures are real. But we must stop and ask ourselves, ‘How will the decisions we make today impact the educational access and quality of our children and grandchildren?’ At rock bottom, the long-term economic changes for any state rest on education. We must all work together to ensure our university system is ready and able to move this great state forward.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 30 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry