Observer

Issue date: 9/5/06 Section: Page One

Welcome back to a slimmer, more expensive Rutgers-Newark.

A university budget shortfall that totaled $80.4 million this summer means students at Rutgers University will pay more in tuition even though they have fewer classes, activities and services to choose from, university officials said.

On the Newark campus alone, the $84 million operating budget from the previous year was slashed by $6.6 million, officials in the Provost's Office said in August.

The R-N cuts translated to reducing 116 class sections, laying off 43 clerical and administrative staffers and eliminating appointments for 29 full-time faculty and 163 part-time lecturers, officials said.

"It's not good news," said Provost Steven J. Diner, the Newark campus' top official. "These cuts are very real and very deep. There is no question that they are going to have a negative impact."

Students, meanwhile, will pay an average of 9 percent more in tuition - the highest that the university could raise it under state law - than last year.

Tuition, room and board will cost over $19,000 for a full-time in-state student, and nearly $28,000 for an out-of-state student.

Tuition has increased more than 65 percent since 2001.

A letter sent out by university president Richard McCormick said the shortfall was caused by rising energy and insurance costs the university pays coupled with a $66.1 million state aid cut to Rutgers after the state legislature in July approved Gov. Jon S. Corzine's proposed $150 million reduction in money to state colleges and universities.

The number was still lower than Corzine's proposal in March, which would have cut higher education funding by $300 million - nearly $100 million of which would come from Rutgers.

McCormick said at the time that that cut would be tantamount to raising tuition by 30 percent to keep Rutgers at status quo.

Despite the restoration in part of the planned cuts, the university had to eliminate 750 employees either by not appointing them to teach a class or through layoffs on all three campuses.

In New Brunswick, officials eliminated six varsity sports from the Scarlet Knights - men's tennis, men's fencing, women's fencing, men's swimming and diving, men's heavyweight crew and men's lightweight crew.

Most of the cuts were made to administrative services.

According to Aida Torres, the Newark vice provost in charge of budget, all three campuses were asked by the President's Office to cut 10 percent of administrative costs but only 7.5 percent of academic costs.

Continued...

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