My wife and I met at UNH and both graduated from UNH. We were lucky enough to be in a financial position where both our children also graduated from UNH. I have had a number of gymnasts I have worked with also attend UNH. It saddens me to see this institution which I love go down this path. The STATE of New Hampshire MUST fix the funding issue at the state’s colleges and universities. We are graduating our next generation into a huge debt.
I moved here from NY to attend UNH and I fell in love with the area and stayed. So many people are choosing to attend schools out of state because it is less expensive and they stay there.
Tony
SIOBHAN SENIER
JANUARY 19, 2024 4:55 AM
“What is happening at UNH – draconian cuts on the one hand, budgetary obfuscation on the other – is absolutely not unique.” (Dennis Tangney Jr. | Getty Images)
This commentary was updated on Jan. 19 at 10:25 a.m. to clarify that layoffs happened at the University of Maine at Farmington. The story was also updated on Jan. 21 at 1:05 p.m. to remove a reference to UNH being under budget by $9 million last year. The university reports being $9 million under budget on tuition revenue for this year.
You may have seen the headlines this week: “University of New Hampshire to lay off 75 employees to help save $14M.” The headline conceals the true costs of these cuts, which are only the latest round in many during recent years. The university is also losing many talented, beloved professors who do not have permanent contracts and who are thus, in Orwellian parlance, being “non-renewed” rather than “laid off.” In an extraordinary and unreported move, the university is also shuttering its art museum.
It’s hard to believe that these cuts actually save that much money. The art museum is tiny, already operating on a shoestring, and might cost around $1 million, a tiny fraction of the university’s overall budget, which is somewhere around $900 million. But who knows, really? Because no one is explaining where the mandate to cut $14 million came from, or how that figure was arrived at. The university spokesperson, who is undoubtedly paid better than most professors, has declined to answer reporters’ questions about how much money these cuts actually save.
What is happening at UNH – draconian cuts on the one hand, budgetary obfuscation on the other – is absolutely not unique. Nationwide, small four-year colleges are shutting down. The big flagship state universities, long believed to be relatively secure, are eliminating the programs that make universities what they are – and that their states desperately need. The University of Vermont has cut majors including programs in secondary education; the University of Maine at Farmington laid off tenured professors in fields including philosophy and history; West Virginia University is on a slash and burn campaign against everything from world languages to mining engineering.
Unlike West Virginia, however, New Hampshire is not a poor state; we have a budget surplus in the hundreds of millions.
In his letter to the campus community, President James Dean cited two reasons for the cuts: “enrollments” and “employee compensation.” Those of us who have worked for decades in higher ed and who try to understand university management have been puzzling over the enrollment conundrum.
We now have more students than we have dorms to put them in, so how is it that enrollment is breaking the bank? We hear university officials citing the much-vaunted “enrollment cliff,” proposed by a demographer named Nathan Grawe, whose research is contested, to say the least. At the same time, we know that university credit ratings (and UNH’s is quite strong) are heavily dependent on promises about future enrollment. We know, too, that “enrollment management” has become a huge (and arguably shady) business within universities. How much is enrollment a genuine budgetary challenge, and how much is it something cooked up to keep the business-managerial class paid, and the rest of us scrambling and miserable?
As for “employee compensation,” here’s the thing. Education is in fact a human activity, with human costs. You just can’t replace all instructors with gig workers and apps. For years now, higher education has operated with a flexible pool of contract faculty that can be hired and fired at will, as budgetary or political whims dictate. That is doubly hard to stomach, when so much student tuition money is now given over to enrollment managers, public relations and marketing gurus, athletics coaches, and other ancillary personnel. Universities always find the money to pay those people. They also also find money to dole out to enterprise software companies, who sell the crummiest platforms for teaching, advising, and budgeting, all with the avowed intent of “streamlining operations.” Meanwhile, at UNH and at universities across the country, we have students sleeping in their cars, and instructors depending on food pantries.
Budgets are moral documents. For decades, the mantra in higher education has been, “Run the university like a business!” But truly, even Dunkin’ Donuts seems to understand that, at the end of the day, you need to pay the people who actually make the coffee. You need to have enough cups on hand for when customers actually show up. You even need a few festive holiday decorations.
We are fast moving toward a university that sells young people into debt without giving them the well-rounded experiences or skills that they need and deserve. The MBAs, lawyers, risk managers, and others who have taken over universities are running them into the ground. Perhaps, when we see a headline that says “UNH to lay off 15 Vice Presidents, Halt Executive Bonuses,” we can feel confident that “fiscal responsibility” is being practiced in earnest. Otherwise, it’s time for faculty and students to take their universities back.
