McCrory and Higher Ed 2

Part I is here. Today I want to note the concrete effects of budget cuts. Governor McCrory's budget proposal calls for cuts totaling $135 million from the UNC system. Some of this--how much is open to debate--will be offset by charging out-of-state students more. But this constitutes a significant cut at a time when we've already suffered $1 billion in cuts over the past five years.

I don't think students or parents fully grasp the impact that massive cuts have. The reality is that at a minimum students will:

• find it harder to get the classes they need to graduate
• have bigger classes
• see more part-time instructors (because budget cuts mean not hiring permanent faculty members)
• see more faculty members leave for other universities

These things do not add up to the quality education that Governor McCrory claims to value. At UNC Charlotte we're down faculty and have not been given the funds necessary to replace them. You can keep cutting in the name of market efficiency, but quality will suffer, and students will bear the brunt.

Or McCrory and the legislature will simply go for the nuclear option, which is to dissolve one or two universities entirely. They're already talking about it.