Budget cuts mean cuts to admitted freshman and some student services

Governor Chris Christie has proposed a 15 percent cut in state aid for public schools and Rowan University is not excluded from this budgetary slash.

The school must now close a $15 million budget gap created by the cut and is scrambling to do so, according to university officials.

The budget deficit will cause the school to deny more applications to incoming freshman and cut services to students.

“The state is on hard economic times, and we understand our place in it,” said Director of Media and Public Relations Joe Cardona. “We have been tightening the fiscal belt for the school, and we’ve gone past the last notch long ago.”

By streamlining programs such as the college for professional and continuing education and by cutting back on the amount of incoming students, the school will be able to save close to $12 million.

“I think what we are cutting back on is educational opportunities for students,” said Mike Davies, a freshman mechanical engineering major. “We are turning away kids who definitely qualified to go here. It just isn’t fair.”

Rowan University receives 8,200 applications each year from both graduating high school seniors and transfer students, according to the admissions office. Only a small portion of these applications are accepted, and now that portion will become even smaller.

“We can’t raise the amount of classes as we would have to hire more teachers to teach those classes,” Cardona said. “Incoming students will also need places to stay and given services. Incoming freshmen have to stay on campus unless they live outside a certain distance from the school.”

The campus administration expects the budget to roll back to the state it was in during 2006, the last time the school made truly significant cutbacks in everything from teaching staff to student services.

The only difference between now and then is that the school has expanded to a $250 million budget instead of a $180 million the school was previously spending. There has also been a 25 percent increase on the amount of students attending the school, according to Cardona.

Another part of Christie’s plan affecting the school is to freeze the current New Jersey STARS program. The program offers full tuition to a four-year state college to any New Jersey resident who completed an associate’s degree at a state community college and graduated with a GPA of 3.25 or higher.

“The program here has never been funded for by the state. It costs about $8,000 to educate each student,” Cardona said. “The program was always an unfunded mandate for us.”

The school is also facing an increase in debt service – increasing cost in refinanced loans that the school has taken out to build various projects.

In a March 22 message to the student body, President Dr. Donald Farish said, “Let me say at the outset that we will work to achieve two priorities.  First, the quality of our students’ educational experience—the highest possible quality at an affordable price—will remain our primary objective.

“Second, we must endeavor to ensure the continued employment of all of our permanent faculty and staff.  These two objectives are closely related.”

The administration plans to keep up regular postings through student e-mail and Web site updates to create a transparent way for students to know about upcoming budget cuts.

“This is absolutely pointless. The gap directly shows a negative impact on the growth of our university,” said Brian Carrasquilla, a sophomore radio/TV/film and public relations major. “The gap we have to fill will limit the university’s potential and future growth.”

The budget will be enacted for the fiscal year of 2011. Visit rowan.edu for future updates on budget cuts and proposed plans.