Larger classes, higher fees, fewer professors: what the WCU budget cuts really mean
Laurie Oxford’s department is getting smaller; some of her former co-worker’s offices sit empty.
Oxford, an assistant Spanish professor at Western Carolina University, spoke at a public forum about university cuts Monday on how multi-level reductions have affected the Arts and Sciences department, which has eliminated several faculty positions and all of its Chinese classes.
“Wherever the money is, it’s not in Arts and Sciences,” Oxford said, half-joking.
Losing a person means more than simply having one fewer coworker.
“They mean considerably fewer class choices (and) in general, a much less effective program,” she said.
Oxford warned the audience of more than 200 students, politicians, professors, administrators and other community members that soon other departments will begin to look like the Arts and Sciences if states and universities continue to make sweeping cuts. WCU administrators must cut about $30 million from next year’s budget.
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Larger class sizes, higher tuition, fewer course offerings and laid-off faculty members brought the crowd together.
The forum was part of a statewide, student-led “Cuts Hurt” movement that attempts to lay out what the decline in education funding really means. The approved state budget will cut more than $400 million statewide in higher education spending.
The budget cuts passed by the Republican-led General Assembly were “as extreme as they were unnecessary,” said Gov. Bev Perdue, in a video to attendees of the WCU forum.
Perdue vetoed the budget bill earlier this year, but the General Assembly overrode her veto.
“You’ve seen these cuts, and you understand the damage that has been done to the core of North Carolina,” Perdue said.
Like colleges and universities across the country, WCU has faced its own budget crisis and had to raise tuition and make across-the-board cuts in order to balance its budget. Last week, university administrators presented their recommendations for tuition and fee increases to its Board of Trustees. They had originally planned to raise tuition by 17 percent during a four-year period but changed those numbers after meeting with students.
“We heard you, and we went back to the drawing board,” said Sam Miller, vice chancellor of Student Affairs.
Instead, tuition will increase by 13 percent during a five-year period. When combined with fees, the total cost of attendance will increase by almost 7 percent.
“We think that it is still unfortunately higher than we’d like to do,” Miller said, tempering that sentiment by adding that the increase will help balance the budget and maintain academic quality.
Several students spoke during the forum about how tuition increases affect them.
Emily Evans, a single mother and senior at WCU, said she knew that university administrators were doing their best to minimize the impact of the budget cuts but bemoaned the need to increase already high tuition costs.
“When is the last time your Pell Grant went up?” Evans asked.
Students must take out more loans to cover the cost of education. Student loan debt in the U.S. will surpassed the $1 trillion mark this year.
“This is a big problem, not just for students like me,” Evans said.
Some students are forced to put their education on credit cards, which have high interest rates. Fewer students will ultimately graduate as college becomes tougher to afford.
“Anybody in this room could predict that those students aren’t going to finish,” said N.C. Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Mars Hill.
Lawmakers have turned their back on education and that needs to change, he said.
“We have got to turn this state around. It’s going the wrong direction,” Rapp said.
Throughout the event, speakers urged students to register to vote and to create videos of themselves talking about why education is so important to them and how they have been affected by the cuts. The videos will be posted to the “Cuts Hurt” Facebook page.
“People will listen to you,” said Andy Miller, a WCU student and one of the event organizers. “Your voice matters and important, important people are listening.”
