States Put Squeeze on Public Universities

Public universities and colleges are expecting midyear budget cuts, again. Pick a state, and more likely than not, its sour economy is affecting higher education. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote in December that 44 states are facing budget shortfalls this year (the ones that aren't? Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming), and 24 states have already proposed college/university cuts.

Snapshots from student papers:

Florida State's FS View and Florida Flambeau reports $61 million (!!) in midyear cuts.

Recently Florida's Senate for Higher Education Appropriations committee voted to cut the budget for higher education by almost $200 million in order to help appease the overall state's budget gap of $2.4 billion.

"Our state has had 20 straight months of lower than expected collections and has therefore reduced budgets over this period of time," [Provost Lawrence] Abele said. "Up to today, our budget has been reduced a total of about $26.3 million. We expect that the current special session will reduce it another $13.1 million and that the regular session will have to reduce our budget another $22 million for a total of about $61 million dollars. That is a huge sum."

"Huge" could be an understatement here.

The Iowa State Daily reports $7.2 million in cuts for Iowa State.

The university will cut an additional $4.3 million, or 1.5 percent, from its budget after an announcement made in December by Gov. Chet Culver.

When added to the earlier mid-year budget cut announcement made in November, the total cuts in the budget will equal $7.2 million, said President Gregory Geoffroy.

The state of Washington is looking to increase tuition and decrease spending to save more than $500 million among its schools, the University of Washington's Daily writes.

To help stabilize the budget, [Gov. Chris Gregoire] proposed a 13 percent state funding cut for public, four-year colleges and universities and a 6 percent reduction in state funding for technical and community colleges. The combined state savings from the two cuts represent an estimated $343.9 million.

The governor's budget proposal also includes a 7 percent tuition increase for undergraduates at public, four-year colleges, the maximum amount allowed by Washington law. This would cost UW undergraduates an average of $453 per year.

A 7 percent increase in public, four-year college and university tuition, combined with a proposed 5 percent tuition raise for community and technical colleges, would increase the state's budget by an estimated $163 million.

The Louisiana State University system faces $29 million in cuts. The bad news? That's still a lot of money. The good news? It's about half of what was expected, and it's not as bad as some other SEC schools.

University of South Carolina system = $52 million in cuts

University System of Georgia = $29.7 million budget reduction in October

University of Alabama system = $15.8 million