The Brunswick News
3/3/2010
By ERIKA CAPEK
If cutting the state's higher education budget by $300 million for fiscal
2011 becomes reality, cuts would be deep and serious enough to literally compromise the success of Georgia, state Rep. Roger Lane, R-Darien, said Tuesday.
That figure includes the $2.3 million that would be taken away from College of Coastal Georgia if state funding levels drop even lower than they already have, below the $1 billion mark.
Possible sweeping cuts could force the newly created four-year college in Brunswick to revert to a two-year institution because, beginning July 1, it would not have funding to operate as a baccalaureate institution.
The college's return to a junior college would be detrimental to the area and costly to the state, Lane said.
"The college is very vital to our community and Coastal Georgia," Lane said.
"It would be a tremendous setback if all the cuts put on the table were implemented."
College of Coastal Georgia and the other 34 colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia were told by a state Legislature subcommittee to collectively reduce their budgets for the next fiscal year by $300 million. The state is not planning immediately to enact such a drastic reduction, though it would if revenue shortages made it necessary.
Lane is optimistic it won't happen. He doesn't think the cuts - whatever the state decides - will be extensive enough to knock College of Coastal Georgia back to a junior college level.
College of Coastal Georgia President Valerie Hepburn and other college and university presidents worked over the weekend to list the programs they would eliminate if severe cuts were to be made beginning July 1.
Among of the reductions Hepburn offered were eliminating state support and closure of certain programs. Her most drastic - and not one she is advocating - was to abandon a baccalaureate program and to return to two-year junior college status. Also included in possible statewide reductions to hit the $300 million savings target is the University of Georgia's Marine Institute on Sapelo Island. The university is proposing to close the facility if the Legislature requires it to trim millions more from its fiscal 2011 budget.
"I'm always optimistic," Lane said. "This is what the subcommittee asked for, to show us what it would take if $300 million of higher education was taken out of the budget. I'm optimistic all those cuts will not be made."
However, Lane concedes the state is in dire economic straits and that no one knows what could happen in hard financial times.
In a letter Hepburn sent the subcommittee with her suggested cutbacks, she wrote that she does not support implementation of the items contained in the proposal she sent to the state.
"Please be assured that we will continue working diligently to find other avenues to address resource needs and make reductions if warranted," she wrote. "We intend to continue aggressive student and faculty recruitment and ongoing development of our baccalaureate programs."