The Facts: Governor Bev Perdue proposed her plan for North Carolina’s 2011-2013 budget last Thursday. Gov. Perdue minimized the across-the-board cuts and set the UNC-system’s budget cut to a six percent reduction. The University is being faced with the possible consolidation or elimination of underutilized programs.
Our Opinion: N.C. State is at a lull in their budget nightmare, but they’re not out of the woods yet. We should take this time to self-improve so that we may maximize student success, while preparing for the future.
In her proposal, Governor Bev Perdue focused more on “the consolidation and elimination of underutilized programs,” rather than “across-the-board” cuts. This plan reduces the budget cuts to the UNC system from the original anticipated 10-15 percent, to a mere 6 percent, which will reduce the blow for N.C. State as well. However, the governor’s proposal is not the final say. It must go through and be approved by the North Carolina General Assembly. This proposal, while being a sigh of relief for us here at N.C. State, creates an ideal opportunity for the University to clean house.
This new 6 percent budget cut for the UNC system allows some wiggle room for the University to look within its academic fields and gut the programs that are still under-enrolled and not being used to their full potential. We could go further by using this time to improve our own University by saving the time and money spent on these programs.
This removal of the dead weight our University drags around would better help it achieve student success by being able to refocus certain resources to achieve this neglected goal. The right-out elimination of programs is not the suggestion, however the possible consolidation of programs into a broader one would sufficiently cut down on resources used to keep the individual programs fully running.
Along with maximizing our resources to better our students’ success, the University can also add pad for any future monetary cuts. If they cut and consolidate now, as if priming for a larger cut, future budget restraints may not hit as hard. These preparations could give N.C. State a one-up on other universities, in that we would not be forced to take drastic measures when others would have to. By doing these actions now, with the time to carefully evaluate the programs under question, we can save ourselves from any future willy-nilly decisions that would not only be costly, but also cause negative consequences.
The University does still not have a finalized course of action to brace themselves for the state budget cuts, but do have a plethora of ideas. The suggested integration of programs could be a viable solution to this current monetary nightmare. In order to do this however, the administration would need to buck-up and reorder their priorities to put students first in the wake of this current economic recession. The decision ultimately funnels down to the main focus the University has towards the student body as a whole, rather than these individual programs. the University should maximize their resources to be the best they can be for their students, and not stifle students’ success to protect underutilized programs. N.C. State administration has the ability to look in the mirror and fix their flaws.
