Comments to the Commission on Higher Education

June 22, 2007

New Jersey has only 12 senior public institutions: the flagship research university, the institute of technology, the medical university, and nine state colleges and universities.  Today, I would call your attention to those nine state colleges and universities.  According to national studies, they are among the most productive of their type in the country; they are also among the least well supported.  From the perspective of Montclair State University, the largest of the nine and the second largest university in the state, here is what the past few years have looked like. 

In 2001, MSU had about 13,500 students; we had 16,000 this year, and next year, we project we will have closer to 17,000.  We are educating thousands more New Jerseyans.  We think this is a good thing.

In 2001, MSU granted about 2,400 degrees; this year we granted 3,400, and next year we project we will grant about 3,850 degrees.  Each year, more New Jerseyans are receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees and preparing for professions in science, business, education, and the arts.  We think this is a good thing.

In 2001, MSU had about 440 full-time faculty; next year, we project that we will have 567.  With the replacement of retirees and the creation of new positions, well more than half of the University’s current faculty has been hired during my tenure as president, and they have come to Montclair State with training from the nation’s and the world’s best universities.  This increase in full-time faculty has meant upgraded programs, more externally funded research, and better instruction for New Jerseyans.  We think this is a good thing.

In 2001, the campus was desperately short of all types of facilities, a deficit created over decades of neglect.  By any measure of national norms, the campus had hugely inadequate numbers of classrooms, outdated and inadequate science laboratories, technology, and specialized instructional facilities, inadequate public spaces, and a massive shortage of faculty offices and student residential facilities.  Since 2001, we have increased academic square footage by about 56% and student housing by 72% and we have invested in a cutting edge technological infrastructure.  These new facilities have meant vastly improved educational opportunities for thousands of New Jerseyans.  We think this is a good thing.

Since 2001, the University has taken seriously its responsibility to supplement state funding with private and federal funds, and we have grown revenue from external sources by 385% and increased our endowment by 179%.    These resources have enabled the University to conduct research and offer programs, scholarships, and facilities that would not otherwise have been available to New Jersey students.  We think this, too, is a good thing.

During this period of phenomenal effort and growth on the part of the University, the state’s response has been disinterested and disappointing, characterized by the following:

Since 2001, the state has reduced the University’s direct operating support from $4,795 per full-time equivalent student to $3,643, a decline of 24%.

Since 2001, the state has forced the University to absorb over $22 million in accumulated, unfunded, state-negotiated salary increases.  We project the new unfunded bill for us to pay in FY 2008 will be another $4.6 million.

The FY 2008 budget provides about the same amount of direct operating support for Montclair State that the state provided in 2001, making no adjustment for over $10 million of accumulated inflationary cost increases, making no adjustment for close to $27 million in accumulated unfunded salary increases, making no adjustment for a 23% increase in enrollment, for new program development, or for the support of expanded facilities.  State support, including fringe benefit support, will constitute less than 30% of the University’s FY 2008 operating budget, a decline from about 46% in 2001.

And worse still, since 2001, the state has not invested a single penny in the construction, renovation or maintenance of the facilities of its second largest university.  Not one penny.  And this was during a period when the state’s new debt increased by close to $18 billion.

Not only has the state not invested in Montclair State University, it has burdened us unnecessarily with a myriad of unfunded mandates and with an arcane and obsolete state college contracts law that makes it impossible for us to do for ourselves some of the important things the state will not do.  For example, at Montclair State we have a desperate need for more student housing.  Despite the new residence halls we have been able to build, we are tripling students in small rooms, putting beds in every lounge and nook and cranny we can find on campus, putting students up in hotels, and we still have hundreds and hundreds of students on waiting lists for housing.  Following a successful model used around the country, there are private developers who would build that urgently needed housing for us, at no cost to the University or the state, if we could get some relief from the state college contracts law.  After years of trying, we continue to be unable to get any attention to fixing this simple problem. 

New Jersey loses over 32,000 students a year and imports only about 5,600.  No state in the nation of our population size looks even remotely like that.  Our competitor states are recruiting the best and brightest into their states from around the country, but in terms of imported students, we look like Mississippi.  This continued severe imbalance and huge
 
net loss of college-educated young population may well be part of the “substantial increase in the net population leaving for other states,” noted by economist Joseph Seneca.  The 2010 census will tell us the extent to which the state’s population loss consists of young, skilled workforce, but the fact is that North Carolina has now taken New Jersey’s place among the top ten population states, and North Carolina imports about 17,000 students annually (compared to our 5,600) and loses less than 7,000 (compared to our 32,000 loss). 

There are some in the state who will argue that the higher education problem is structural, that we need more bureaucracy and controls and centralized governance structures.  They are wrong.  For many years, we had a Department of Higher Education and a Chancellor and a bureaucracy that cost more than any of the colleges it oversaw, and all that structure and control left us with a legacy of under-developed, under-built, under-funded state colleges and universities.  While other states’ public colleges were maturing and developing, New Jersey’s were left stunted in their growth.  Only since their release from the stranglehold of bureaucracy, have the institutions been able to exercise their independence to make the best of their circumstances and at least begin the process of catching up with comparable institutions in other states. Let us not be distracted by debates about structure.  A quick look across the nation will show that institutions can thrive under a centralized structure or under a highly autonomous structure, but they cannot thrive under any structure where there is not a committed and sustained investment.  And that is what New Jersey has been unwilling to make, and least of all for its nine state colleges and universities, which are the primary educators of New Jersey students at the baccalaureate level.

To you, the distinguished Commissioners of higher education, I say, whatever we have been doing to get the point across about the importance to New Jersey of investing in higher education has not been working.  Year after year, we are seeing missed opportunities for building for the future of our state and its people.  If we genuinely care about this issue, we need to change our approach and seriously intensify our efforts.  I would certainly hope that we could do this together. 

According to the last census, there are over 2 million people in New Jersey under the age of 18.  Their futures rest with us, and the state’s future rests with them.  Access to high quality and affordable higher education has never been more important to New Jersey’s economy and to New Jersey’s people.