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Education The Almighty Buck United States

Alaska's Engineering Colleges Prepare To Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty (ieee.org) 125

Posted by BeauHD from the money-problems dept.
In response to Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy's dramatic budget cuts to the state's only public institution of higher education, the University of Alaska's engineering colleges in Fairbanks and Anchorage are preparing to cut faculty members and slash a number of programs. "Dozens of engineering faculty, researchers, and staff could see their positions eliminated, and even tenured faculty members could lose their jobs. Students may not be able to finish their degrees in the programs or locations in which they started," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Many engineering students have already lost merit-based scholarships promised to them via the Alaska Performance Scholarship program." From the report: On 28 June, Gov. Dunleavy vetoed US $130 million in state funding for the University of Alaska system for the fiscal year that began on 1 July -- a step he said was necessary to contend with the state's $1.6 billion budget deficit, inflicted in large part by sluggish oil prices. Those cuts came on top of a $5 million reduction proposed by Alaska's legislature. Overall, state funding for the University of Alaska has been reduced by $136 million [PDF], or 41 percent, for the fiscal year that began 1 July. That translates to a 17 percent reduction to the University of Alaska's total operating budget. Citing reputational damage caused by these cuts, the University of Alaska's Board of Regents expects tuition, grant funding, and charitable donations to also drop, adding to a total loss of more than $200 million [PDF] in funding for the current fiscal year.

The University of Alaska is now widely expected to declare financial exigency [PDF], an emergency status that would allow administrators to take extreme measures to reduce costs by closing campuses, slashing salaries and programs, or laying off tenured faculty. However, closing the university's flagship Fairbanks campus would still not be enough to cover the shortfall. In response to budget cuts in previous years, the university has already suspended or discontinued more than 50 degree programs and certificates, including its MS in Engineering Management program.
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Alaska's Engineering Colleges Prepare To Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty More

Alaska's Engineering Colleges Prepare To Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

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  • Whaaaat?? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Robert Ng ( 4646923 )
    I Republican slashing education funding? Unheard of!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So the democratic solution is to go deeper in debt? Or raise taxes? Or prioritize education over health care?

      What are you proposing they do. Your snarky contribution does not solve anything.

      • Alaska has no income tax. Instead, it gives residents money from oil income. The reason for these massive cuts is that the governor wants to balance the budget without instituting an income tax or cutting back on the oil dividend.

      • Ya, raise taxes like any other state that never had to depend upon and inexhaustible supply of high priced oil. I suspect that Alaska politicians are all hoping that the prices go back up so that they can continue in their dream world of having good state services with zero taxes.

      • So the democratic solution is to go deeper in debt? Or raise taxes?

        Oh, you mean dip into those BILLIONS of dollars of oil company exceptions which let them avoid over half of otherwise normal business taxes?
        Hell yes.

    • Why don't they start w/ humanities, and then other arts faculty - which is the least of what they need. Focus just on engineering. Somebody wants to do gender studies, go to California, at Santa Cruz or Davis

  • Maybe stop paying residents for doing nothing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If they are running a deficit, why are they giving residents thousands of dollars per year for doing nothing? That should be the FIRST thing that gets cut.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And that's exactly what a majority of people living in Alaska are trying to do. However, Dunleavy is also the governor who got elected by promising everyone a $3,000 PFD and appears to be determined to stick to that, education (and a whole massive range of other services) be damned.

      Most Alaskans are will to either forego a PFD entirely and/or adopt an income or sales tax to cover the cost of the services, but Dunleavy's vetoes can't be overridden without a 3/4 majority (of which only about 38 --a mix of bo

    • Re:Maybe stop paying residents for doing nothing (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19, 2019 @09:52PM (#58954796)

      You must not be an Alaskan resident, because you're speaking of the PFD without a single shred of an idea of what it really is. I'll give you a starting point: the PFD doesn't come from, involve, or take away from the budget UA's money comes from nor does it come from the state's coffers.

      • Re:Maybe stop paying residents for doing nothing (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19, 2019 @10:56PM (#58954966)

        Different AC, will be a bit clearer: In Alaska, you do not own all rights to land you own by default, the state does.

        In return, there is a fund, supported by exploitation of those rights (oil rights, most obviously, but others too) which is meant to support Alaska. This "Permanent Fund" is used in lieu of taxes (at the state level, most municipalities have a tax or two at their level).

        In the good times, we started paying out some of that as a 'Dividend' - so we're getting paid for not having specific land rights, basically. Not a horribly unfair arrangement when you think it through.

  • When are these red staters going to learn that low taxes do not work? I'm so fucking tired of supporting these morons with my tax dollars. Sick. Of. It. Get an education, get a job, or get your damn hands out of the cookie jar.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jasnw ( 1913892 )
      Ah, but many in Alaska see the dismemberment of the UA college system as a feature, not a bug. Poke those pointy-headed liberal elitist ivory-tower types in the eye and bring them down a notch. Unfortunately for the UA folks, they don't have big football and basketball programs with GOP alumni supporters. This type of supporter for universities in many red states is all that keeps the meat cleaver from coming down on the likes of Duke, UK, or 'Bama.
    • Aren't you glad to have the opportunity to practice what you preach? Those who have must share with those who have not. What did AOC say, "whether they work for it or not"? How splendid it is to uphold your own principles and share your excess with the poor. Regardless of if they deserve it or not. It's what you tell everyone else to do.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        There's a big difference between people who are poor due to a combination of factors, some within their control, and some without, and malignant, deliberate ignorance. This sort of stupidity is 100% the fault of the red staters. No income tax? No property tax? States like this should receive $0 federal funding. This is outrageous.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No income tax? No property tax? States like this should receive $0 federal funding. This is outrageous.

          Alaska has property tax.

          Anyway, your point does not follow. Why should a state be taxed for nothing just because they do not need other specific types of tax revenue?

          Do you believe Washington, that deep-blue state ought to receive no federal funding? No medicaid, no medicare, no provisions for roads, education, loans, social security, no coast guard, no customs, on and on it goes?

          Of course not. That would be absurd. But if it's a red state, well, they are just a bunch of white trash deplorables right? No bi

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The cuts are because Alaska's revenue on oil production - it is a tax, but on the extraction of a natural resource - fell as the price of oil fell.

      It's a bit like the capital gains tax, in that it is inherently unstable - large one year, small the next. Trouble is, legislators always want to spend every penny available, and the only way expenses come back down is... cuts.

      Pity about the impact on education, not really sure how it had such a massive retro-active impact on yours though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        I'm aware that they get oil money. I read the article. I also read that the people of Alaska would rather cut their own public education system instead of having to pay any state taxes. Hence, my post.

  • If UAA could only teach (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19, 2019 @09:00PM (#58954612)

    When a University is unable to keep its teaching accreditation then we should shut down that University. As a resident of Alaska, we’re unable to justify three separate Universities for a state that has only 700,000 people.

    • Re:If UAA could only teach (Score:4, Informative)

      by crunchygranola ( 1954152 ) on Saturday July 20, 2019 @12:01AM (#58955128)

      When a University is unable to keep its teaching accreditation then we should shut down that University. As a resident of Alaska, we’re unable to justify three separate Universities for a state that has only 700,000 people.

      What if you call it one university with three widely separated campus complexes? Would that make it acceptable to you?

      The fact is Alaska is a huge state. Fairbanks and Juneau are 1000 miles apart, with Anchorage roughly in the middle. Alaska has just three significant centers of population, so this locates one campus in each. That seems like a very intelligent way of arranging this. The public college attendance in Alaska per capita is about average for the country (a bit lower) so it hardly seems excessive. Even little Fairbanks is a metropolitan area of 100,000 people, its 8000 student campus hardly seems excessive for the population, nor pathetically small as an institution.

    • Must suck to live in a third world country.
      My hometown has roughly 300k inhabitants, we have ten universities.
      One is workd wide reputated: KiT Karlsruher Institute of Technology.
      And: for most of the world, studying here is: free.

  • Could it be that powerful forces want to ensure that the following study is never subjected to peer review, and a final report issued: Collapse of World Trade Center 7 [uaf.edu]?

  • Good to see a large state run university system facing layoffs of previously untouchable tenured professors and administrators.

    The bloat increase in those high paying college staff jobs funded by all to easy to get student loans is the reason why college is too expensive and growing faster than inflation for 25 years.

    Would like to see the same in a larger state - Calif, Florida, NY, NJ, Texas, ...

  • They're firing engineering professors, but what about the football coaches and all the VPs in charge of fundraising and counting paper clips? It wouldn't hurt to shed a few of them.

  • This is just the tip of the iceberg. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark_reh ( 2015546 ) on Saturday July 20, 2019 @08:15AM (#58955870) Journal

    You don't understand the plan.

    If we're going to bring all the factory jobs back to make America great again, we need a work force that will compete with Chinese/Vietnamese/Congolese wages. That starts with not wasting money on education. Educated people want better jobs and more pay. That's not going to Make America Great Again!

    Oh yeah, uneducated people tend to be easily manipulated into voting for the GOP (govt of Putin), which is another benefit of cutting education funding.

  • ... if they lay off every "diversity officer" first. And anything involving sports.

    If they don't, then they can't be hurting all that much.

  • The major city near where I lived at a mammoth budget shortfall. The citizens voted that there should be budget cuts, instead of simply constantly raising taxes. The mood was eliminate inefficiencies and more frivolous aspects of government first, then go to taxes.

    The mayor through a hissy fit. Instead of looking for waste, she decided that cuts would come out of police and fire department budgets first. She even went so far as to cut the rape victims testing unit. Her more pet initiatives for Bike paths

  • ...this is the sort of thing we need to see in the federal government that borrows 1/3 of its budget annually just to pay the bills.

    This isn't a partisan point, I'd fully support a flat proportionalization across all programs of the federal budget each year to match the tax income from the previous period, with no favorites (except debt service, which is obligatory).

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