$1,076,000 budget slash hits GC&SU

Georgia College & State University will be losing approximately $1.076 million in state funding as a result of budget cuts across the University System of Georgia.

In a letter to the University community on Sept. 10, 2004, President Dorothy Leland explained the accumulation of cuts over the last three years to be detrimental to the quality of the programs offered at GC&SU.

“Since 2001, we have sustained over $5 million in budget reductions,” said Leland. “These cuts translate into a reduction of nearly $2,000 per student in state funding. This is obviously a significant reduction, and it threatens to affect the quality of programs we offer at GC&SU.”

Leland said University System of Georgia Chancellor Thomas Meredith announced ways the System will deal with the cuts. The University System of Georgia as a whole will face a $68.7 million budget cut.

“Chancellor Thomas Meredith has announced that the University System of Georgia will deal with the cut through a combination of a mid-year tuition increase and work force reduction,” said Leland.

Leland said GC&SU would start looking at how to accommodate these requests.

“We will soon start working with appropriate faculty and staff to identify areas for cost savings and to prioritize critical needs programs and services,” said Leland. “You should know that the chancellor has emphasized that layoffs will be a last resort. He suggested that institutions will cut our support personnel first through attrition, then through retirements. Layoffs would become necessary only if we cannot meet the reductions through those other means.”

Leland also said a mid-year tuition increase is likely.
“While we hate putting any additional burden on the backs of our students and their families, this tuition increase, combined with the other cost-savings efforts, is necessary to provide the high-quality educational opportunities for which GC&SU is now known,” said Leland.
Leland said she wishes the budget news was better for the University.

“But I am confident that, as we have in the past, the people of this campus will work together to find ways to increase efficiency, save money and continue to provide a top-notch liberal arts education to our students,” said Leland.

In his report to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia on Sept. 8, 2004, Meredith addressed the budget issue from the state-wide perspective.

“Since November of 2001, we have undergone $382 million in cuts,” said Meredith, who added that these cuts came in part due to the economic conditions of sectors of the state.”

Meredith highlighted Georgia’s historically low tuition.

“We rank 11th out of 16 SREB [Southern Region Education Board] states in tuition and fees at our two-year colleges and 14th out of 16 at our four-year colleges,” said Meredith, adding that Georgia offers a $10,000 product for far below value.

Meredith said that recent state-level budget cuts on top of previous budget cuts will mean policy changes in regard to tuition across the state, as well as access and support functions.

“Regarding tuition, we must increase tuition faster than in recent years to make up a part of the shortfall or reduce academic quality,” said Meredith. “We will recommend that our tuition for two-year colleges and state universities move from among the lowest of the SREB states to at least the median on a planned schedule. At our research universities and some institutions with special missions, tuition may need to be above the SREB median.”

Meredith also addressed how a tuition increase will affect students enrolled in schools across the state of Georgia.

“But what does this mean for our students?” questioned Meredith. “It means that we are not going to make up the entire funding gap on the backs of students and families. Let me say that again: we are not going to make up the entire funding gap on the backs of students and families.”

Meredith said all students will feel the impact of the state budget cuts, but lower-income students will feel it most.

“It will impact all students, but unfortunately [it] will have the biggest impact on lower-income students whose PELL grants are fixed,” said Meredith. “Georgia’s future economic prosperity depends upon our ability to provide higher education to young people from lower-
income families.”

Meredith said that admissions policies across the System will need to be re-evaluated.

“As a System, we will need to reset optimal enrollment targets for our institutions based on their facilities and financial resources for faculty that are available,” said Meredith. “It would be fraudulent on our part to accept students we are not able to serve appropriately or who cannot get the classes they need.”

Meredith said the System will work to ease the strain of budget cuts exacerbated by increasing enrollment wherever possible.

“We know that the state’s financial constraints are not expected to ease soon. So we will work with institutions on a case-by-case basis to slow these enrollment increases to match their physical and financial capacity,” said Meredith. “Some institutions will need to defer all new admissions for spring semester; others will need to control their next fall’s freshman class more tightly; some will need to tighten transfer requirements. We will work very hard to minimize the best we can the impact on students wherever possible.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 17 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