Hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to higher education proposed in the Republican-approved budget will decimate programs and services for UConn and Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) students, educators said.
In historic votes, the state Senate and then the House approved a $40.7 billion Republican budget plan that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has vowed to veto.
UConn President Susan Herbst wrote in a bulletin to the UConn campus community that a more than $300 million cut “is unprecedented and would be devastating for UConn, higher education in Connecticut and the state as a whole.”
She warned of closures to regional campuses and academic departments as a result of such cuts, possibly even the closure of schools and colleges within UConn, and closure of UConn Health “or large parts of it.” Other impacts would be felt in the university’s majors, graduate, athletic, international and research programs.
CSCU President Mark E. Ojakian issued a similar warning publicly over the weekend, saying, “Our students are not numbers on a budget sheet.”
On Monday, CSCU Director of Communications Maribel La Luz said the cuts would total approximately $93 million over the next two years.
Ojakian said the budget passed by the General Assembly would force “dramatic cuts” on the CSCU system, phase out the Roberta Willis Scholarship, which helps thousands of students afford college, and “will pass on higher costs for our students while simultaneously cutting programs and access to financial aid.”
