Higher Education Task Force offers hope for New Jersey amid economic challenges

BY DARRYL G. GREER

COMMENTARY

The recently released report of Governor's Higher Education Task Force, chaired by former Governor Tom Kean, offers citizens more hope for tying higher education to the state's future competitiveness and prosperity than any other study since the 1990's. Our Association strongly endorses the report, recognizing that certain issues surrounding graduate medical/nursing education deserve further study.

Here are a few facts that explain why this report is so important at this time:

Our nation and our state are falling behind the rest of the world in college completion, especially in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics fields. As of 2005, the US ranked 12th among developed nations in the proportion of the population that has at least some postsecondary education according to the Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation.
Global studies show that, for individuals, some college education is critical to competing and performing in the workplace and prospering in the 21st century.
New Jersey remains among the top five states in the proportion of citizens who possess a college degree. However, according to a recent policy brief from the Lumina Foundation, this state should produce, by 2025, over 760,000 additional associate or bachelor's degree graduates, beyond current degree production levels. Doing so would support President Obama's goal for national competitiveness.
New Jersey spending on K-12 education is second highest nationally and is a top state in high school graduates aspiring to attend college. Yet the state ranks among the worst in four-year public college capacity per 1,000 population and has a deplorable loss of college-bound high school graduates, 30,000 annually, by far the biggest net-loss among the 50 states.

The report carefully documents steps needed to achieve goals of expanded college opportunity, affordability, quality improvement, and accountability. Among the leading recommendations is the need for state investment to expand college opportunity. The state needs to stop slashing funding for higher education, and begin investing in public colleges and universities by better and more consistently funding their operations and facilities.

Another crucial set of recommendations addresses the need for public colleges and universities, in managing their affairs, to be free of Trenton regulatory red tape. College presidents need the tools to make strategic financial and personnel decisions to achieve quality and affordability goals for their institutions. For example, colleges and universities, especially with diminished state support for facilities renewal, must have the authority to build facilities more expeditiously through partnerships with private developers. In turn, college presidents should be accountable for these decisions, not primarily to Trenton, but to their nonpartisan, volunteer boards of trustees following Sarbanes-Oxley financial transparency best practices.

Student financial aid is another key area the Task Force examined. It surveyed the array of current programs, which include some of the most generous need-based aid programs in the nation. It concluded that successful programs, such as Tuition Aid Grants and the Educational Opportunity Fund program, should be strengthened. It also advocated consolidating a hodge-podge of "merit" based scholarship programs to better align them with student aspirations and other NJ and federal student aid programs to meet policy goals.

Another important recommendation pertains to the principle of "state mandate-state pay." The report found that it is unacceptable for the state to continue the practice of mandating spending at public colleges and universities, without providing institutions with the resources to pay the bill. At state colleges and universities, for example, this means freeing the colleges to negotiate labor contracts directly, rather than having Trenton doing the negotiating, but passing on the costs to colleges — the current practice. Direct negotiation by the colleges would mean more college accountability for cost and performance.

Finally, the Task Force recommends new strategies and partnerships to make higher education an ongoing part of the state's economic and workforce development, recognizing that higher education is essential to job creation and long-term state prosperity.

The common thread among all these major policy recommendations is preserving college opportunity, quality and affordability for New Jersey residents at a time of urgent economic needs and global competition for educated workers.

The thoughtful, hard work of the Task Force provides New Jersey with a unique chance to regroup and lead the nation in aligning higher education with a broader state agenda that will benefit all citizens.

State officials, higher education and business leaders, as well as labor leaders each can help by informing the public about the facts in the report and the challenges and opportunities ahead. Soon, the Association plans to survey public opinion about the report's recommendations and share our findings. We believe this report deserves broad public attention, support, and prompt action, and trust that the public will agree.

Darryl G. Greer is CEO of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities whose member institutions are The College of New Jersey, Kean University, Montclair State University, New Jersey City University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Rowan University, Thomas Edison State College, and William Paterson University.