Final Budget Negotiations Reflect Network’s Messages
State colleges will continue to face large cuts in state operating support amounting to 15% and up under the FY 2011 state budget enacted in late June. This will happen despite several thousand messages to the governor and legislature favoring restoration of college funding cuts.
Most of the state’s elected officials felt they had no choice but to maintain proposed cuts in higher education, local school funding and other areas given the state’s revenue shortfalls and a limited appetite for enacting new taxes.
Still, the Network’s messages this year were reflected in some very positive changes made during final negotiations among legislative leaders of both parties and the governor’s office:
--The proposed merger of Thomas Edison State College with Rutgers University was cancelled and a portion of the funds that were “zeroed out” in the proposed budget were restored in the final version; and
--While student aid cuts were significant in the original budget proposal, partial restorations were made in the final version. Originally, scholarships in the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) program were cut $3.6 million; the final budget restored one-third of that: $ 1.3 million.
Both of these priorities were supported by Network messages.
Meanwhile, there is expected to be, over the summer, progress in another area supported by Network messages this year: reducing state regulations that siphon precious college and university resources.
Latest News
Five Signs of Hope for Higher Education in New Jersey
The Times
Darryl G. Greer
July 27, 2010
Expanding the state's competitiveness by providing more college opportunity in the Garden State has not been a high priority for New Jersey. This has been the case for many years, for many reasons, not just because of the economic recession, as some have maintained.
Those opinion leaders willing to accept the low priority given to higher education tend to minimize the effect of the exodus of 36,000 New Jersey high school graduates each year to attend college in other states -- the nation's highest number. This loss reflects not only students choosing to leave the state, but also an appalling lack of adequate in-state capacity at four-year public colleges for students who want to study here. The Garden State ranks 47th in the nation in four-year public college seats per capita. The student exodus costs the state billions of dollars, and it makes it harder for businesses and families to prosper here.
Meanwhile, higher education cuts have been used -- for much of the past decade -- as a partial fix to state budget challenges. With such persistent disinvestment, and no facilities funding for the past 20 years, it is no surprise that New Jersey public college tuition is among the nation's highest. Today, tuition and fees for housing and other services compose at least two-thirds of colleges' total revenue, with the state's share trailing, by far. Recent suggestions blaming higher education's woes on the current "Great Recession" or the absence of a Cabinet-level state agency are nonsense.
Yet, following decades of state-level policy myopia, there are reasons for cautious optimism that higher education is advancing among the state's competing priorities. That is good news for parents and students. To read full story, including five signs of hope, click here.
Welcome
Thank you for visiting the New Jersey College Promise Action Network! Welcome to a widening circle that now includes over 8,600 individuals: alumni, students, parents, friends, and many others.
Your participation will help raise public awareness of, and interest in, the important role New Jersey’s nine state colleges and universities play in educational attainment, economic development, and improving the quality of life for all who live in the Garden State.
Are you a veteran? To learn more about veteran benefits, visit
www.operationcollegepromise.com
One Year After the Passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, State Colleges Median Enrollment Increases by Nearly 60%.
Several More than Double Veteran Enrollment.
Enrollment of servicemember and active-duty populations has surged at New Jersey's nine state colleges and universities in the year following the enactment of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, according to a survey conducted by the Operation College Promise (OCP), the veterans project of the NJ Association of State Colleges and Universities. To learn more, click here.
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Advocacy Tips
When you write to your state officials…..
- Be brief and succinct. Get to the point quickly
- Be issue-focused, stay on one topic
- Feel free to mention your relationship to the colleges and universities and how you benefited from them
- Be cordial
- Be appreciative of the official’s responsibilities for policy issues beyond higher education and assume those you write about do care about the state colleges and universities have done some things in the past to help them
- Use facts to support your request for action
- Ask for action, e.g. “Will you support …….?”
Should you visit or talk to an official…….
- Follow the above suggestions plus…..
- Listen politely and attentively to what they say
- Get contact information for the official’s aide or staff person
- Offer to get answers to any questions you are not prepared to answer
- Contact NJCPAN officials about the results of your meeting and for help answering questions
- Send a follow up note thanking the official for his/her time and reiterating your points