A sharp budget cut proposed by state legislators on Friday may force the university system to raise tuition, officials said.
The House of Delegates’ budget committee approved $21 million in cuts to the University System of Maryland late Friday, more than wiping out the minor funding increase that Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) had proposed for higher education. While state legislators said they want to continue a tuition freeze, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan said tuition would have to increase to maintain educational quality if a cut of that size is finalized.
“We now have an over-$20 million hole that has to be filled either by raising revenue – namely tuition – or making cuts to programs,” Kirwan said. “And we don’t really want to do either, but in my opinion, I think most students would prefer a minor tuition increase to having the quality of their experience decrease.”
Tuition has been frozen for the past three years because the governor has dedicated state money to hold it down. This year, he allotted $16 million to do so and proposed a small funding increase for the system. But because the university system’s general fund and tuition revenues go into the same pool, officials will face an undesirable choice if the system’s budget suffers a cut: maintaining quality or maintaining affordability.
The House slashed $11 million from the system’s general fund and $10 million from its $104 million in reserves, which system leaders also worry will bring down the system’s credit rating. Delegates indicated that they wanted to keep the tuition freeze in place, said Joe Vivona, the system’s vice chancellor for administration and finance. This concerns system leaders because the cut to the general fund doesn’t come from specific areas. But if $16 million of an already reduced budget is labeled for holding down tuition, the quality of the system’s 11 institutions would undoubtedly decrease in order to plug the gap, Kirwan said.
The Board of Regents, a panel of gubernatorial appointees who oversee the system, has the final word when it comes to tuition increases and won’t make any decisions until after the budget is approved next month.
“One of the things the Board of Regents feels strongly about is we don’t want the quality of higher education to go down,” said Board of Regents Chairman Cliff Kendall. “And if there’s a sizable cut, the Board of Regents will evaluate a tuition freeze very carefully.”
However, both the governor and the General Assembly have expressed that they are very much in favor of a tuition freeze, seemingly regardless of cuts made to the system’s budget. And it is unlikely the regents will raise tuition if Annapolis stands firm, said state Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s), a former member of the Board of Regents.
“The Board of Regents aren’t going to do anything the governor or General Assembly doesn’t want them to do,” he said.
The regents are hardly complaining about the cuts as they are all too aware of the state’s economic situation, Vivona said. But the system has already made highly praised efforts to increase productivity as much as possible through the Efficiency and Effectiveness initiative, and making up budget cuts by further reducing enrollment, majors or other services would hinder the system’s efforts to move forward, he added. Raising tuition by four percent could quell that very problem.
“But the governor is saying higher education is so expensive, and he’s right,” Vivona said. “Maryland has been abysmal in terms of affordability for such a wealthy state. So that’s what we’re up against.”
The senate will make its own cuts in coming weeks. While no one is sure what they will be, university officials continue to make their case for holding on to O’Malley’s original proposal, which was already “a modest budget, not a move-forward budget,” Kirwan said. After the senate makes its decisions, high-ranking legislators in both houses will haggle over the differences in conference committee and finalize the decision by April 6.
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