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Last week, a governor had a strong message for public colleges in his state: Get ready for a world without Covid-relief funding.
Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, a Democrat, has directed substantial cuts to higher ed in his state-budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year. Lamont’s chief budget official told CT Mirror that the influx of federal money that’s poured in over the last three years was always temporary, and that colleges should have planned accordingly.
The governor’s proposal hasn’t sat well with higher-ed leaders. Radenka Maric, the University of Connecticut’s president, estimated that her campus could lose $160 million in state funding next year. In response, Maric has threatened to sever ties with the arena in Hartford where the basketball team typically plays, according to The Daily Campus, the student newspaper, citing, in part, that the costs of the arena deal benefit the state and local businesses more than the university.
Mason Holland, UConn’s student-body president, called on students to walk out of class on Wednesday and travel to the state capitol to protest the cuts.
Colleges received more than $76 billion from three Covid-relief measures passed by Congress in 2020 and 2021. The aid allowed many colleges to keep students enrolled and maintain critical programs throughout the pandemic, while also scaling up investments in mental-health counselors, basic-needs resources, and other student-support initiatives.
But that aid has mostly run out and will end entirely in a few months, leaving some colleges scrambling to find funding to cover the rising cost of operations. That challenge has come into sharp relief in Connecticut, where the state’s financial realities raise serious questions about how colleges can adjust.
Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education and head of the department of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said declines in enrollment, the rising cost of facility maintenance and utilities, and salary increases for faculty and staff are driving increasing costs.
The University of Connecticut originally received a one-time $28.4-million infusion of direct pandemic-related aid, which university officials said they distributed through grants to students and used to cover pandemic-related costs during the 2022 fiscal year. After Connecticut policy makers negotiated salary increases with public employees, state officials also gave colleges additional funding from the American Rescue Plan in 2023 to help cover the costs.
Instead of states using their budget surpluses to make those investments in higher education, many states have been engaged in a race to the bottom with tax cuts.
This year, UConn leaders again requested more state funding to help cover those employee-related costs, which will grow next year. But by the looks of Lamont’s budget, that isn’t going to happen.
The proposal would decrease higher-ed funding over the next two fiscal years — amounting to a $159.6-million budget reduction at UConn next year and a $197.1-million reduction the following year based on a preliminary review, according to Maric.
“The appropriations proposed for UConn and UConn Health fall far short of what is necessary to adequately fund the university, carry out our critical public health mission most effectively, and fully cover the sizable costs the state seeks to pass along to us,” Maric said in a letter to the university community last week.
Terrence Cheng, president of Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, said the proposal has the potential to create “long-term harm” to the state’s institutions.
Lamont’s office didn’t respond to several requests for comment from The Chronicle.
As Kelchen sees it, economic challenges are a key driver of what’s happening in Connecticut.
“Covid-relief funding helped plug a lot of gaps in states with budget challenges, and Connecticut is one of the states that hasn’t seen the growth and the revenue that other states have seen during the last couple of years,” Kelchen said.
Beyond Connecticut, states across the country are considering tax cuts that would exacerbate higher-ed funding problems, said Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.
“Instead of states using their budget surpluses to make those investments in higher education, many states have been engaged in a race to the bottom with tax cuts,” Harnisch said. “This will affect the ability of states to make investments in key priorities such as higher education when the economy slows down, and federal funds disappear.”
If UConn were to try and cover the cost of these potential shortfalls by raising tuition, that would mean an increase of 19 percent — or $3,000 — per student next year, Maric said.
“We simply cannot provide less while asking our students to pay more,” Maric said.
Raising tuition is one way to alleviate financial pressures, both Kelchen and Harnisch noted. That isn’t always an option in states where the legislature or state governing board controls tuition. Colleges have the authority to raise tuition in Connecticut, but Harnisch said that approach has drawbacks.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” Harnisch said. “Unfortunately, it ends with students taking on more debt.”
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