Higher education at 'critical tipping point'

Sarah Day will be spending more time in college than she expected because she can't get into the classes she needs. Available sections are either full or have been cut altogether.

"It's really hard to stay on track with life plans when you're not able to take classes when you need them," the University of Utah junior in environmental studies said. Day might have to drop a second major in order to finish "on time."

Budget cuts have forced Utah's colleges and universities to stretch available funding at a time when enrollments are higher than they've ever been, forging a "critical tipping point," said Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg. On top of personnel cuts, in which the system has eliminated more than 900 positions, schools have had to make ends meet using creative strategies involving program and course elimination and decreasing services to students. Ultimately, the schools will have to increase tuition to make up for the 17 percent budget cuts already mandated.

"We don't have the money either," said Utah Student Association director and Utah Valley University student Joseph Watkins. "People are already pushed to the limits."

Members of the State Board of Regents, along with Utah's nine college and university presidents, voted Friday to "stand strong and united" against further cuts to higher education, asking the Legislature and the governor to exhaust all options, including use of the state's Rainy Day Fund and restoration of a food tax to prevent additional budget woes.

"The impact is becoming very dramatic, and it is affecting students in significant ways," said Utah State University President Stan Albrecht. He said it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep and recruit top faculty who are being swayed by higher salaries in other states. When state funding is cut, public research institutions are left to rely on private partnerships, technology spin-offs and increased competitiveness for grant money to get by, which is "seriously threatening infrastructure," Albrecht said.

"The rubber band is stretched just about as tight as it can be stretched right now," he said.

Officials at Salt Lake Community College used stimulus money to add at least 700 new sections and hundreds of adjunct faculty to meet the needs of rising enrollment this semester, but when that money is gone, SLCC President Cynthia Bioteau said, the institution may be faced with shutting down entire programs and might have to close one or two of the school's 14 campus locations.