President’s Welcome and Testimony to the State Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee

Chairwoman Buono and members of the Committee, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Montclair State University on behalf of our students and employees and on behalf of my colleagues in the higher education community, most especially President Arnold Speert of William Paterson University and President Carlos Hernandez of New Jersey City University who have joined me today. We very much appreciate that the members of this Committee have taken the time to travel beyond Trenton to reach a larger audience in the state.

Let me begin by saying that all of us are cognizant of the difficulty of the task you have before you in making decisions about the state budget at this time. We appreciate the complexity of the dilemmas that face you, as well as the technical complexity of the myriad moving parts and variables that comprise the state budget. In the current circumstances, we do not ask for miracles. Respectfully, we ask only that you undertake your work not just seeking short-term solutions but rather within the context of a long-term vision for the state and its people.

As you are all aware, the Governor’s proposed budget once again cuts appropriation to the state’s public colleges and universities. This year the now all too familiar and expected cut is 5%, plus the rescission of all support for the state negotiated salary increases. Once again, New Jersey’s colleges and universities will scale back and delay educational programs, scientific equipment, repairs and renovations, scholarship support, services to students and the community; once again, tuition is likely to rise. But how we will deal with the short-term fix for the cuts is not the real issue. I assure you that we have become adept at adapting to declining state appropriations. The real question before us is: what are this state’s long term intentions in regard to safeguarding public higher education as a viable option for the people of New Jersey?

Historically, New Jersey has never, at any time in its history, been a strong supporter of public higher education. It has never been a state priority. But the dramatic disinvestment in public higher education that has occurred over the last decade is unprecedented, and it has caused a major shift of the costs of public higher education from the state to students and their families, constituting an effective user-tax on a large and very important segment of the state’s population.

The fundamental principle of public higher education is that individuals with ambition and ability in our state and nation should have the opportunity to go to college without regard to the circumstances of their birth or the income level of their families. And the purpose behind that principle is that this nation needs the contributions that can be made by a broad range of its citizens – individuals like seven of the members of this Committee who earned college degrees from public institutions of higher education, including Chairwoman Buono, who we are proud to claim as a graduate of Montclair State.

Let me share a few straightforward facts to focus more specifically on what I mean:

Montclair State University has 17,475 students. That is 4,000 more students today than it had in the year 2000. Next year we will have closer to 18,000 students. Montclair State granted degrees to 3,477 students last year. That is 1,200 more degrees than it granted in the year 2000.

Notwithstanding that growth, the Governor’s proposed budget provides Montclair State with direct state appropriation that is less in actual dollars than we received in 2000. When one factors in the effects of inflation, the direct state appropriation proposed for next year represents a 34% decrease in real support over this decade. State appropriation per student at Montclair State in 2000 was $3,366, already an appallingly low number. In the Governor’s proposed budget, state appropriation per student drops 31% below that 2000 number to $2,411.

That’s Montclair State, but you will also find similar effects of this decade of disinvestment at William Paterson University, at New Jersey City University and at the state’s other public colleges and universities.

Beyond the gross decline in operating support, there has not been a bond issue for the capital facilities of the state’s own public colleges and universities since 1988. While this state spent tens of billions of dollars on facilities construction and continues to spend billions for K-12 schools, not one penny has been spent for the state colleges and universities. Our students have built their own buildings, and despite all that we have built, we are still grossly under-resourced in facilities based on even the most conservative national comparisons.

In this environment, you can imagine our further disappointment at the fact that there has been no indication to date that any of the federal state stabilization funds will be used for higher education. While other states are talking about how they can use these stimulus funds to secure operating support for public colleges, minimize tuition increases, and provide for facilities renovations, there is, so far, no similar discussion happening in New Jersey.

Applications to our state colleges and universities have been rising every year. This year, Montclair State has seen a 20% increase. New Jersey citizens are voting with their feet. They want a place in one of their state colleges. Many of them won’t get one, and they will continue to be forced out of state. Net out-migration of New Jersey students constitutes close to 40% of the total net out-migration in the nation. We’re talking about a net loss of close to 30,000 students every year. No other state in the nation does that. New Jersey stands alone in systematically and blithely escorting out the door the very young people who represent our future, after having spent more dollars per student on their primary and secondary education than any other state in the nation. How nice for our competitor states, who, by the way, welcome them in gleefully.

So the question before us today is not which roof will not be fixed or which program will not be expanded or for how many students there will not be places in the programs or colleges of their choice, the question now is only this – is New Jersey ready to fight to assure a college education for its people? The answer to that question over the last decade has been a definitive no. The answer in this year’s budget was no. The answer in the Governor’s proposed budget continues to be no.

If the answer continues to be no, we will, most assuredly, endanger this state’s future economic prosperity and societal well-being. If we do not adopt a different policy in regard to public higher education, I believe, in the not too distant future, we will have given ourselves reason for very profound regret. Chairwoman Buono, distinguished members of the Committee, this state did not do what it needed to do over the last decade. Let us not stand here ten years from now and rue the consequences of what we did not do this year.

On behalf of New Jersey’s students and their families, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of students hoping for their chance in the years to come, we thank you for your attention and for what we know to be your genuine commitment to the people of this state.