Category Archives: Budgets & Funding

Pakistan’s Universities

Posted on September 26, 2010 by | Comments Off on Pakistan’s Universities

ZSpace: Pakistan’s Universities

September 27, 2010 By Pervez Hoodbhoy

Upset by drastic budget cuts imposed by the finance ministry, the vice-chancellors of 71 public sector universities are threatening to resign en-bloc. They rightly say that development projects are grounded, bills unpaid, and some buildings only half-constructed. Paying teacher salaries is also at risk. But a cash-strapped government retorts that its number-one priority is dealing with the flood devastation. It says it cannot afford the inflated budgets of previous years.

Of course, sooner or later a limited bailout and some compromises will be worked out. But one thing is certain – the party is now over. For years, money had rained down from the skies and been foolishly squandered. The Higher Education Commission’s profligacy and abuse of resources meant that, floods or no floods, disaster was in the making. But it simply chose not to look at red flags along the way.

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U. of Southern Mississippi Plans to Cut Programs and 29 Faculty Jobs

Posted on September 2, 2010 by | Comments Off on U. of Southern Mississippi Plans to Cut Programs and 29 Faculty Jobs

The Chronicle: U. of Southern Mississippi Plans to Cut Programs and 29 Faculty Jobs

With classes barely under way at the University of Southern Mississippi, officials at the institution are already preparing for a steep budget reduction for next year. They have notified 29 faculty members, about half of them tenured, that their jobs are on the line.

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Ontario universities cash-starved: OCUFA report

Posted on April 6, 2010 by | Comments Off on Ontario universities cash-starved: OCUFA report

The Ottawa Citizen: Universities cash-starved: report

Student-teacher ratio highest in Ontario, faculty group says

The contrast between the past and the present at Ontario universities lies at the heart of a report released today by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), the voice of 15,000 professors and academic librarians across the province.

The report, titled The Decline of Quality in Ontario Universities, calls on the province to inject millions of dollars more into universities so today’s students can enjoy what previous generations did — without going deeply into debt.

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UNLV removes dean critical of program cuts

Posted on March 30, 2010 by | Comments Off on UNLV removes dean critical of program cuts

Las Vegas Review-Journal: University removes engineering dean

College chief was critical of UNLV’s plans to eliminate programs

The dean of UNLV’s College of Engineering, whose programs are expected to be among the hardest hit in the next round of budget cuts, has been removed from his job and reassigned to the provost’s office, the university confirmed Monday.

Eric Sandgren took over as dean of the college in 2003. His contract, which pays him $193,596 a year, expires in June.

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Liberal arts cuts at U of Maine

Posted on March 30, 2010 by | Comments Off on Liberal arts cuts at U of Maine

Bangor Daily News: UM students, faculty voice concerns about likely cuts

Report eyes slashing women’s studies, performing arts, languages

ORONO, Maine — More than 200 concerned University of Maine students and faculty members questioned the school’s academic administrators during a public forum Monday about an academic prioritization report released last week that calls for $12.3 million in budget cuts. The proposed cuts would eliminate majors in women’s studies, foreign languages, public administration, performing arts and other areas of study.

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Ontario Will Add 20,000 New Students at Colleges and Universities…but no new professors

Posted on March 29, 2010 by | Comments Off on Ontario Will Add 20,000 New Students at Colleges and Universities…but no new professors

The Chronicle: Ontario Will Add 20,000 New Students at Colleges and Universities

Ontario, already the province with the most universities and colleges in Canada, will add 20,000 new places for students this fall, according to details in yesterday’s provincial budget. The province will spend more than $300-million for the expansion, in addition to more than $200-million that was previously announced. The budget also says Ontario plans to aggressively promote its colleges and universities abroad to encourage the world’s best students to study and settle in the province. It will also pay for an improved credit-transfer system. The higher-education expansion was welcomed by the universities and colleges, but faculty members said there was no mention of hiring additional professors.

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Nevada Higher Education Faces Sweeping Cuts Under Governor’s Plan

Posted on February 17, 2010 by | Comments Off on Nevada Higher Education Faces Sweeping Cuts Under Governor’s Plan

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada Higher Education Faces Sweeping Cuts Under Governor’s Plan

Gov. Jim Gibbons brought to the table two ideas for generating $80 million in new revenue when he called on Tuesday a Feb. 23 special session of the Legislature to deal with an $887 million shortfall.

The governor proposed increasing revenues from the mining industry by $50 million and allowing a Chicago company to launch a camera-based auto insurance and registration verification program that would net the state $30 million.

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U. of Iowa Lists 14 Graduate Programs at Risk for Cuts or Elimination

Posted on February 17, 2010 by | Comments Off on U. of Iowa Lists 14 Graduate Programs at Risk for Cuts or Elimination

The Chronicle: U. of Iowa Lists 14 Graduate Programs at Risk for Cuts or Elimination

Worried faculty members at the University of Iowa now have a report from a provost-appointed task force that names 14 graduate programs — half in the humanities — that could be restructured or eliminated as the university seeks to save money.

In a process that began last spring and triggered some angst among faculty members, the task force categorized the institution’s 111 graduate programs into five groups. The 14 programs are in a category called “additional evaluation required” and have “significant problems,” with no “viable plans for improvement,” the report says.

The programs the group said needed to be evaluated further are: American studies, M.A. and Ph.D.; Asian civilizations, M.A.; comparative literature, M.A. and Ph.D.; comparative literature (translation), M.A. and Ph.D.; film studies, M.A. and Ph.D.; German, M.A. and Ph.D.; linguistics, M.A. and Ph.D.; educational policy and leadership studies (educational administration), M.A., Ed.S., and Ph.D.; educational policy and leadership studies (social foundations of education), M.A. and Ph.D.; health and sport studies, M.A. and Ph.D.; teach and learn (elementary education), M.A. and Ph.D.; stomatology, M.S.; integrative physiology, Ph.D.; and exercise science, M.S.

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U of A faculty accepts six unpaid days

Posted on February 17, 2010 by | Comments Off on U of A faculty accepts six unpaid days

Edmonton Journal: U of A faculty accepts six unpaid days

EDMONTON – University of Alberta faculty have agreed to take six unpaid days of vacation next year in exchange for the chance to review and critique previously confidential financial planning documents.

“It’s not a matter of having any sort of veto power,” said Walter Dixon, president of the academic staff association. “If we think it’s the wrong decision, we can actually say so before that decision is made so that there may be some sober second thought.”

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UK: Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare to cope with cuts

Posted on February 15, 2010 by | Comments Off on UK: Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare to cope with cuts

The Guardian: Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare to cope with cuts

• Post-graduates to replace professors
• Staff poised to strike over proposals of cuts

Universities across the country are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, the Guardian has learned.

Other plans include using post-graduates rather than professors for teaching and the delay of major building projects. The proposals have already provoked ballots for industrial action at a number of universities in the past week raising fears of strike action which could severely disrupt lectures and examinations.

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U. of Sussex students start occupation to protest budget cuts

Posted on February 9, 2010 by | Comments Off on U. of Sussex students start occupation to protest budget cuts

U. of Sussex students start occupation to protest budget cuts

Occupation Statement 1
We have occupied the top floor of Bramber House, University of Sussex, Brighton. There are 106 of us.

The decision to occupy has been taken after weeks of concerted campaigning during which the university management have repeatedly failed to take away the threat of compulsory redundancies and course cuts.

We recognise that an attack on education workers is an attack on us.

The room we have occupied is not a lecture theatre but a conference centre. As such, we are not disrupting the education of our fellow students; rather, we are disrupting a key part of management’s strategy to run the university as a profitable business.

They’re occupying everywhere in waves across California, New York, Greece, Croatia, Germany and Austria and elsewhere – and not only in the universities. We send greetings of solidarity and cheerful grins to all those occupation movements and everyone else fighting the pay cuts, cuts in services and jobs which will multiply everywhere as bosses and states try and pull out of the crisis.

But we are the crisis.

Profitability means nothing against the livelihoods destroyed, lost homes, austerity measures, green or otherwise. We just heard we’ve increased ‘operational costs’ – they’d set out the building for a meeting and now they’ll have to do it again

We’ll show them “operational costs.”

Occupy again and again and again.

NO CUTS ANYWHERE.

THE UNIVERSITY IS A FACTORY. STRIKE. OCCUPY.

-All the occupiers of the 8th of February.

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Historic declines in state support for public higher ed

Posted on January 18, 2010 by | Comments Off on Historic declines in state support for public higher ed

Inside Higher Ed: Historic Declines

By any financial measure, this fiscal year is a terrible one for public higher education. And while that’s no surprise to anyone working at a state college or university, new national data document the extent of the loss of state support.

Total state support for higher education for 2009-10 — including federal stimulus dollars — is $79.4 billion, which is a decline of 1.1 percent from the prior year and 1.7 percent from the year before that. This represents a dramatic shift from the three-year period of 2005 to 2008 when state support grew 24 percent, to $80.7 billion — without federal stimulus dollars in the equation. Without the federal stimulus contribution, which is now over, state support this year would have been down 3.5 percent over one year and 6.8 percent over two years.

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Oklahoma: St. Gregory’s University says it will implement hiring freeze, lay off 5% of employees

Posted on January 15, 2010 by | Comments Off on Oklahoma: St. Gregory’s University says it will implement hiring freeze, lay off 5% of employees

SHAWNEE, Okla. (AP) — St. Gregory’s University’s interim president says the private Catholic school in Shawnee will lay off some employees by the end of the week.

University President David Marker made the announcement Wednesday, saying about five percent of the school’s 119 faculty and staff will be affected by the layoffs.

Marker says St. Gregory’s also is implementing a hiring freeze and cutting expenditures. A dozen open positions within the university will not be filled at this time.

He says the measures are necessary to ensure the university’s fiscal stability in the face of declining enrollment and endowment figures. He says other universities are facing similar financial challenges.

St. Gregory’s is Oklahoma’s only Catholic university. It has about 70

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AAUP Report Slams Clark Atlanta U. Over Faculty Layoffs

Posted on January 14, 2010 by | Comments Off on AAUP Report Slams Clark Atlanta U. Over Faculty Layoffs

The Chronicle: AAUP Report Slams Clark Atlanta U. Over Faculty Layoffs

The American Association of University Professors issued a report today accusing Clark Atlanta University of numerous violations of faculty rights in connection with its dismissal of about a fourth of its faculty members last year.

The report, by an AAUP investigative committee, concludes that the university’s administration declared a nonexistent “enrollment emergency” last February as a pretext for firing about 55 full-time faculty members without due process.

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UK: Cash-starved universities will have huge classes, says union

Posted on January 13, 2010 by | Comments Off on UK: Cash-starved universities will have huge classes, says union

The Guardian: Cash-starved universities will have huge classes, says union

Lecturers claim savage government cuts will close universities and send 14,000 academics to the dole queue

Universities in the UK will be among the most overcrowded in the world within three years if savage government cuts to higher education go ahead, academics warned today.

The lecturers’ union, UCU, said more than £900m of cuts announced last month would fill lecture halls with “some of the biggest class sizes in the world” by 2013.

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Outsourcing push roils Boston College

Posted on January 13, 2010 by | Comments Off on Outsourcing push roils Boston College

The Boston Globe: Outsourcing push roils BC

Many students, faculty join workers fighting cost-cutting proposal

Custodians, groundskeepers, and other workers at Boston College have long felt a part of the BC family. When employees reach their 25th anniversary, maintenance staff and professors alike are treated to an elegant banquet honoring their longtime service and given a commemorative clock. Workers’ children, if qualified to gain admission, receive free tuition.

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Potential Boon for California Higher Ed

Posted on January 7, 2010 by | Comments Off on Potential Boon for California Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed: Potential Boon for California Higher Ed

California’s public colleges have had a brutal couple of years. It’d be ridiculously premature to say that things are turning around — but Wednesday brought them at the very least a symbolic boost, in the form of a proposal that could lead to more of what they really want: a greater share of state funds.

In a State of the State speech that elevated education, and higher education in particular, above some competing state priorities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed amending the state’s Constitution to ensure that the state’s two major public university systems receive no less than 10 percent of the state’s operating funds each year. The additional funds would come by cutting spiraling state spending on prisons, the governor said.

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U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

Posted on January 5, 2010 by | Comments Off on U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

The Chronicle: U. of Illinois to Furlough 11,000 Employees and Freeze Hiring

The University of Illinois, facing a $400-million budget shortfall, will require administrators to take 10-day furloughs and other staff members to take four unpaid days off in the first half of 2010, in a move that will affect 11,000 employees, the university’s interim president announced today. The university has also instituted a freeze on hiring and salary increases, effective immediately. The state’s budget crisis, which has caused the university’s shortfall, is compounding an already difficult academic year for the university, which is still recovering from an admissions scandal last year that led to the departure of its president.

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CA community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

Posted on December 23, 2009 by | Comments Off on CA community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

Contra Costa Times: Community colleges may offer bachelor’s degrees

With tens of thousands being turned away from state universities, California lawmakers likely will consider granting community colleges the right to offer a limited number of bachelor’s degrees.
The shift, which has occurred in 17 other states in the past decade or so, would represent a major philosophical change in California, where the three state higher-education systems have clearly defined roles.

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Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

Posted on December 23, 2009 by | Comments Off on Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

Los Angeles Time: Parents in California Start to Mobilize Against Tuition Hikes

The budget crisis afflicting California State University could not have come at a worse time for Berenice Vite and Rafael Curiel, whose son Alonso is a sophomore at Cal State Long Beach. As the university was imposing a 32% student fee hike this year, Curiel underwent two shoulder surgeries and lost his job at a medical equipment firm.

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