Last week, the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee issued its proposed budget for fiscal year 2010. The proposed budget is not pretty; there is a $3 billion deficit, and social services of all kinds have been slashed.
All predictions were that public higher education would suffer badly. The good news: The committee ‘s proposal matches Gov. Deval Patrick ‘s and maintains the operating budgets of the state college, community college, and UMass systems at the levels they were at before the mid-year budget cuts we experienced this year.
The Ways and Means committee recognized the drastic effects of the mid-year cuts and states in its summary, ‘As a result of the mid-year budget reductions, the University of Massachusetts and our state and community colleges sustained cumulative losses of $53.4M over the course of the current fiscal year [fiscal year 2009].’ The Committee recognizes the burden that these reductions have placed on the Commonwealth’s public institutions of higher learning.”
In addition the budget calls for the state to use federal stimulus funds to ‘prevent layoffs, reinstate services and ‘- most importantly ‘- keep higher education affordable.’
This is our victory.
Students, staff and faculty at UMass Amherst have been working all semester with partners from state and community colleges and the rest of the UMass system to organize our people and exercise power with Gov. Patrick and the state Legislature. We organized call-in days and demonstrations and met with legislators to explain why it is so important ‘- now more than ever ‘- to support accessible public higher education.
But we should not celebrate too much. Public higher education has been underfunded in this state for decades. This budget doesn’t move us forward. It just means that we will not slip much further back. Despite the good news in terms of campus operating budgets, there is also bad news for higher education.
In the Ways and Means Committee’s budget proposal, the line item for Massachusetts State Scholarship Programs, which includes MASSGrant, the state’s largest need-based financial aid program, has been cut by 14 percent, from $97 million to $83 million.’
This means that unless students and supporters of higher education speak up, it is likely that the amount of money available for MassGrant will be reduced, canceling out the $3 million increase that was won by Massachusetts Students Uniting (MSU), the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM) and others last year.
Many people are asking a good question: Should we be fighting so hard for education when so many other state services are suffering? The answer is a clear yes.
Various studies have shown that public investment in public higher education yields direct, long-term benefits to the state’s economy. And it makes sense: When more people can obtain a degree, more people can get higher-paying jobs, and over 80 percent of graduates of public institutions stay in Massachusetts.
When the state helps students pay for school, fewer people graduate with dangerous levels of debt. PHENOM, MSU and the thousands of students, staff and faculty who have spoken out this year are not representing a selfish special interest. Keeping public education accessible and affordable is an essential step toward improving the economy in the long run.
The proposed budgets set an important precedent in that they recognize this fact and mark the first time Massachusetts has’ not‘ cut higher education in a time of crisis. This is not a random’ occurrence.’ It has occurred because of the work that students, faculty and staff from across the state have done and continue to do to protect public higher education.
Emily Bloch is undergraduate student trustee for the University of Massachusetts. She can be reached ebloch@student.umass.edu.
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