Editorial: Quiet acceptance of budget cuts does disservice to students

By: Editorial Board

Posted: 9/5/08

This summer the Connecticut government passed a series of budget cuts aimed at helping to balance the state budget. The cuts, engineered primarily by Gov. Jodi Rell, targeted a variety of state funded organizations, including our very own university. UConn in particular was targeted for a cut of 3 percent in our overall state funding.

Amounting to the largest budget cut in UConn's history, the cuts would affect the full spectrum of UConn's offerings - from the hiring of new professors to the funding of student activities to the raising of tuition costs. So, it goes without saying, that these cuts were widely publicized and fiercely fought, right? Wrong.

"The university kept this pretty quiet and didn't make too much of a deal over the cuts, which is shocking," said former Connecticut state senator Jonathan Pelto, who led the UConn 2000 project. "These cuts are huge, especially when you look at how far UConn has come in the past few decades. Considering how they're going to really impact the quality of education, this was not strongly protested against."

Indeed, the University's response to the cuts, which has been more quiet acceptance than anything else, begs the question: is UConn advocating on behalf of its students?

A few op-ed pieces were written about the budget cuts and President Hogan's office granted a few interviews to local papers on the subject, deeming the budget cuts "difficult to cope with," but no one in the administration railed against the loss of funding.

The president's office, which arguably has the job of advocating on behalf of the university and its students, did little to raise awareness that the cuts were being made, let alone to try to stop them. Most UConn students returned to Storrs this fall unaware that the cost of education would be increasingly shifted away from state funding and towards their own personal financing.

At a time when tuition is constantly increasing, where class size at UConn has steadily increased in the past two decades, where applicants to the university are at record high, students need advocates now more than ever.

Unfortunately, it looks like UConn students will need to look elsewhere for people to advocate on their behalf in the future; the administration seems far too likely to pass the buck - and then let students pay for it.