Last September, Dean Barbara Bardes fully expected to meet the final portion of RWC’s budget for the school year with incoming tuition and student fees. That was before news handed down from Columbus dictated that Ohio’s public colleges and universities would suffer a major blow: a six-percent budget slash equivalent to $121 million. This translated to $480,000 less for RWC in 2001/2002.Dean Bardes immediately consulted with RWC faculty and staff to devise a plan to survive within the new budget while causing minimum impact on student services. The final recommendations resulted in cutbacks in staff hours and computer lab hours, as well as a newly initiated hiring freeze.
RWC was forced to raise tuition in winter quarter by three percent and another three percent increase is scheduled for spring quarter. In addition, a bittersweet rise in enrollment in both the fall and winter quarters has helped RWC to fulfill budget requirements so far this year. The current increase in students is partially attributed to layoffs brought about by national economic woes, which have intensified since September 11.
While funding for public colleges and universities in Ohio has continued to diminish, funds for Ohio elementary, middle and high schools (K-12) are currently protected by a pending lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Ohio known as the DeRolph case. The website supporting the DeRolph litigation describes it as being initiated and sustained “in an attempt to force the state to assume its constitutional responsibility to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state.” The litigation seeks to have Ohio’s education community “do a better job of disclosing the link between high quality educational opportunities for all school children and the quality of the socio-economic order.”
A press release from the Ohio Board of Regents dated September 7, 2001, regarding the DeRolph case states that, “The Board of Regent’s primary concern is that in the high-tech economy of the new century, Ohio’s education doesn’t stop at the 12th grade.” Regent Chancellor Roderick Chu was quoted in that press release as saying that “There is considerable work yet to be done to change Ohio’s state of mind about all education.”
Concerned with a continued attitude of disregard for higher education by the State of Ohio, Chancellor Chu said in a later press release that, “We are 40th in the nation in state support for higher education. That has resulted in our college and university tuition being among the highest in the country, and, of course, those high prices have limited the opportunity of many Ohioans to attend college.”
If you are interested in voicing your opinion to Ohio legislators concerning budget cuts to Ohio’s higher education, log on to Cleveland State University’s website at www.csohio.edu/news/release, where you will find a form letter to forward to your congressmen and all the necessary names and addresses.
(Funded as a “capital project,” the renovations currently underway at RWC are not affected by budget cuts.)