Texas Colleges Starting to Slash Classes

Harry · February 9, 2003

February 3, 2003 5:27pm

Feb. 2--AUSTIN, Texas--The University of Texas at Austin will hire fewer professors, forcing students to scramble more than usual for the classes they want.

At Texas Woman's University, fewer police officers may patrol the campus. Some intercollegiate sports may disappear from Collin County Community College. Tuition will probably rise at Dallas County Community Colleges.

The state's multibillion-dollar budget deficit is no longer just talk. In the last few weeks, it has become an all-too-real beast looming over higher education in Texas.

Higher education is absorbing close to half of the impact from an order that all state agencies cut 7 percent of their 2003 budgets, according to budget figures from Gov. Rick Perry's office.

Of an estimated $700 million to be cut, universities, medical schools, community colleges and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board collectively must slash $343.8 million – in the middle of the school year.

"It certainly is a nightmare," said Tito Guerrero III, president of Stephen F. Austin State University. "The thing that's troubling is it's a nightmare we're not going to awaken from soon."

University officials say they're considering all types of cuts as a doomsday of sorts approaches; they, like all state agencies, have until Thursday to submit a list of cuts to state leaders.

Don Brown, the state's higher education commissioner, said he would use the same philosophy he is preaching to universities: Protect the students first.

"The central thing we have to focus on is making cuts in ways that don't do lasting harm to the movement we're making in lifting educational levels across the state," said Dr. Brown, who is leading the charge to get 500,000 more Texans into college by the year 2015.

The Higher Education Coordinating Board will review several state programs it operates, including the Texas Grant scholarship program, research and technology efforts and grants for students who go to Texas private universities.

University leaders say the required cuts – and dire budget years ahead – won't help them open classroom doors to more students.

And the budget nightmare worsened abruptly for some schools Wednesday.

When the Jan. 23 order came to cut budgets, university officials said they were told to cut the money from their general appropriations budget. But on Wednesday, almost a week later, a higher education policy analyst for Gov. Perry told university presidents and chancellors to also make cuts from a second pot of money, one financed by students' tuition and fees.

Silence filled the legislative hearing room. Presidents and chancellors said they were surprised by the change, which dramatically drove up the amount schools would have to cut.

By late Friday afternoon, the news had changed again. Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry, said the governor, the House speaker and the lieutenant governor decided not to cut money from tuition revenue, just fees. The figures will still go up for some schools.

The confusion has only heightened the stress, said Phil Diebel, vice president for finance and business affairs at the University of North Texas.

"I'm numb at this point," Mr. Diebel said late Friday. "It's a roller coaster ride."

UNT still has to cut about $8 million.

With Feb. 6 less than a week away, university officials said this week they're hard-pressed to say what they will cut.

Meanwhile, professors and students are worried.

"I definitely think the entire university is going to feel this," said Katie King, UT's student government president. "We knew we were going into a tight budget season. Now it's just worse."

Ms. King, a 22-year-old senior, said her and other students' biggest fear is that tuition raises will follow the cuts. The state estimates a $1.8 billion budget deficit for this fiscal year and a $9.9 billion deficit for the next biennium.

The UT System has been leading the charge to ask legislators to allow universities to set their own tuition rates.

The cuts at UT will have more effect next school year, said President Larry Faulkner. Open positions will be frozen, meaning fewer professors and fewer sections of various courses. Also on UT's hit list: Not replacing computers and cutting down on repairs and renovations. UT, meanwhile, is coming up with ways to cut 10 percent from its budget for 2003-04.

All colleges are going to hiring freezes and travel restrictions as their first option. But those measures barely make a dent in the amounts they must hack, officials said.

"We don't know how we'll cut it," said UNT President Norval Pohl. "We aren't adding the numbers up yet."

UNT is studying the merits of every faculty opening.

"My phone's ringing off the hook," Dr. Pohl said.

Department chairmen are calling saying how great each professor was that they planned to hire for an opening.

UNT has debated having a four-day workweek in the summer, but that would save only $140,000, Dr. Pohl said.

Professors are helping with the budget slashing at the University of Texas at Dallas, said Robert Nelsen, a UTD professor and president of the UT System Faculty Advisory Council.

UTD has decided to turn down the thermostat in the winter and turn it up in the summer to save money, Dr. Nelsen said. The university might reduce the number of teaching assistants, which means fewer graduate students.

"Things are happening way too fast," Dr. Nelsen said of the statewide cuts. "We're approaching this in too much of a crisis mode. Everyone is just pulling out knives and trying to cut. I'm afraid they're going to cut meat instead of fat."

Texas Woman's University is discussing making cuts in its police force as one of many options. It, too, is freezing open jobs, then fretting over how it can maintain its growing nursing program without adding faculty members, said Chancellor Ann Stuart.

Protecting services to students is a top priority, but so is protecting faculty research, she said. Cutting travel will hurt research efforts because going to conferences is a part of research for many professors, she said.

While four-year universities so far have given sketchy details on their cuts, community colleges are more specific.

The Dallas County Community College District at first informed its seven colleges that it would cut one summer session and a mini-semester in May. On Thursday, the plan was changed slightly. If the college district's board approves the idea Tuesday, three of the seven colleges will eliminate one of those semesters, and all of the colleges would then raise tuition by $4 per credit hour this summer, said Chancellor William Wenrich. That rate would continue next school year.

Tuition would rise from $26 per credit hour to $30, meaning a three-hour course would cost $90.

Complaints from students and faculty members prompted the change in the plan, Dr. Wenrich said.

As a group, leaders of the state's community colleges met Wednesday in Austin, then delivered a letter to state leaders, saying they could not cut their budgets without directly affecting students. Their options, the college officials said, include limiting or eliminating summer classes; laying off staff members; raising tuition; and cutting student services and partnerships with school districts and other entities.

Collin County Community College doesn't plan to cut its summer programs, but it might cut some intercollegiate sports, said Cary Israel, college president.

"It will hurt," Mr. Israel said of the cut. "It's going to be a challenge."

Mr. Perry is disappointed in the community colleges' intentions to cut summer classes and student-related services, Ms. Walt said.

"By taking the approach community colleges have, by saying flat out, 'We can't do it,' the governor and Legislature will have to dictate cuts to them," she said.

Several El Centro College students would be happy to see summer classes restored. They said they had no idea the billion-dollar budget beast was coming their way.

Anika Wilborn, 19, wants to take as many as classes as she can this summer to qualify for El Centro's nursing program.

"It will affect me a lot," Ms. Wilborn said of the proposed cuts.

University officials, as they near the Feb. 6 deadline, say they're not sure whether they'll be able to save all of their summer programs. But they say they're also realistic; Texas is merely joining other states with multibillion dollar budget problems. The 7 percent cut is only the beginning of the budget-tightening they will face, they say.

"The monster came through our door, and now he's sitting on our lap," UNT's Mr. Diebel said.

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IronMan4 · February 9, 2003

Does anyone know if classes will be cut here.

I would hate to go through what EagleChick did the other semester with the upper level courses in my major.

UNTFan23 · February 9, 2003

I think there has been talk of reducing the number of classes/sections in the summer terms. Sections that traditionally don't fill up could be consolidated.

Also, from what I've heard through the grapevine, people like Graduate Assistants and Teacher Assistants will be losing health insurance.

They might have put a freeze on hiring professors, but they might (and don't quote me on this either) end up hiring more GAs/TAs, since they can pay them less.

PlummMeanGreen · February 12, 2003

So this is not a bi-partisan board? Was it the Charley Manson part that got me censored?

I do think Rick Perry's political future is riding on this multi-billion dollar deficit that he never mentioned on the campaign trail. I wonder if his former boss had something to do with this "humongous" deficit?

Don't forget, though, I am an independent. I did vote for George W's dad the first time around.