State Colleges Seeking Cash for Classrooms

Press of Atlantic City
February 15, 2004

Ask Montclair State University President Susan Cole about college funding and she'll whip out a sheet of numbers she carries wherever she goes.

The numbers talk about enrollment growth, tuition hikes and how state aid for four-year colleges in New Jersey has dwindled even as enrollment reaches record highs.

"We do not underestimate the challenge to the government and Legislature," she said, acknowledging the projected $4 billion state deficit. "But we have to catch up."

The argument is not new.

For more than five years, state college presidents have been the Chicken Littles of higher education, running around the state warning that the colleges are filling, classes are getting overcrowded and they must build to meet demand. Their predictions have come true.