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STORRS — Faculty at the University of Connecticut are warning that impending budget cuts to their academic departments could decimate graduate programs and overburden faculty as enrollment continues to climb.
The cuts are part of a five-year plan that UConn President Radenka Maric announced as a way to offset shortfalls the university is facing with the loss of federal coronavirus relief funds and one-time state funding meant to help the university through the pandemic.
The shortfall for FY 25 is estimated at $70 million, which the university has attributed to rising wages for faculty and staff and a state grant that the university claims has not kept up with inflation. While the state took over the cost of retirement benefits last year — a long time drain on UConn’s budget — Maric told the legislature’s budget committee in February that a reduction in the state block grant negated any budget-related benefits.
The university expects to address part of the shortfall by increasing revenues and enrollment, but is asking for university departments to cut spending by $18 million.
But professors and graduate students are warning that the cuts would have severe consequences on the quality of academic programs.
Two department chairs told CT Examiner that because they do not have control over faculty hires, there is a limit to what they are able to remove from their budgets.
“Basically, no department has 19 percent discretionary funding … so there’s no way to actually do that,” Mark Healey, chair of the history department, told CT Examiner. “Most of the budget of departments is salary. Most of salary is tenure track faculty. We don’t control their hiring and firing. So they’re asking us to cut and can’t deliver.”
The one area that does allow for flexibility, Healey said, is graduate students. He said that 4 percent of the history department’s budget accounted for graduate student education.
Faculty and staff members gathered at the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday to protest the impending cuts and ask the Board and the administration to scrap the five-year plan.
According to Maric’s plan, departments would be asked to cut three percent of their budgets for next year, with ongoing cuts over the following four years, although the size of those cuts would be dependent on future support from the state and other factors.
The university has asked the state legislature for an additional $47.3 million for FY2025, but Gov. Ned Lamont has not included the money in his budget proposal. The legislature’s budget committee, while signaling intentions to use leftover coronavirus relief funds and other funds in the budget, has not proposed a clear plan or indicated how much of this money might go toward higher education.
In February, the budget committee asked the university to explain how it could employ some of the highest paid workers in the state and yet still be asking for more funding from the legislature. Dan Hurley, coach for the men’s basketball team, earned $3.5 million in 2023, and Geno Auriemma, coach for the women’s basketball team, earned $1.8 million that year.
Salaries of $1 million or more last year also went to five employees at the UConn Health Center and football coach James Mora.
The university replied that its salaries are “dictated by the market reviews” and that, of the coaches who won men’s basketball national championships, Hurley’s compensation is “in the middle of the market.”
University spokesperson Stephanie Reitz told CT Examiner that athletics had also been asked to reduce its costs by 15 percent. She noted that in the last year, the athletics department reduced the university funding it receives by more than $16 million.
Reitz also said the high salaries for athletic coaches had nothing to do with UConn’s budget struggles.
“UConn competes to recruit and retain exceptional coaches in a national landscape in which compensation levels are largely driven by the market. Our coaches’ contracts reflect that highly competitive market. The university also competes to recruit and retain exceptional faculty and staff in their respective markets,” Reitz said.
She added that the university had not eliminated any degree programs, increased class sizes or reduced academic supports.
Clare Costley King’oo, head of the English Department, said departments were scrambling to manage a larger number of students without being able to add faculty, because of cuts to the budget. She said that in the last two years, eight members of her faculty have had to go on extended medical leaves.
“This rate of serious medical issues makes me extremely anxious about the consequences of the stress we are all under as we face another round of cuts and the requirement that the university grow,” said Costley King’oo.
Costley King’oo told CT Examiner that if her department had to cut 19 percent of their budget — an estimated $2 million of the $10 million total that the English Department receives — it would probably mean the end of their graduate program. She said they currently have 60 students enrolled in the program.
And if they lost the graduate students, many of whom are responsible for teaching a required 1st year writing course at the university, the department would be forced to cut sections of that course and enlarge the remaining classes.
“If you’re going to teach reading and writing, you shouldn’t have more than 30 to 35 students in a class. Of course. We’re already at 40. It will go up into the hundreds,” said Costley King’oo.
Farnoush Baghestani, a PhD student in the university’s Biomedical Engineering department, said she depends on her income as a graduate assistant. She warned that the budget cuts would force graduate students to shoulder more work for less pay.
“As an international student, most of my social circle consists of fellow graduate students. Many of us have no financial support from back home, especially being on a single entry F1 visa,” said Baghestani, who is from Iran.
Baghestani said she recently put aside nearly all her savings to pay taxes. She added that financial pressure limited housing options for international students.
“In my first semester, I even had to put my clothes in a suitcase and walk through the snow for 20 minutes to reach a laundry room because our three bedroom apartment didn’t have a washing machine,” said Baghestani.
Another graduate student, Claire Neider, said her finances were already teetering, with most of her money going toward rent and fees for school.
“If it wasn’t for things like the local food pantries, both here and in Willimantic, I wouldn’t have eaten this morning,” said Neider. “This is the reality for so many grad students here on campus, and it’s only getting worse if these things get implemented.”
Mary Beth Allen, a professor of French and Francophone studies, criticized the university for not asking for the full $70 million from the state rather than putting it on the shoulders of faculty to make the cuts.
Allen and another professor also criticized UConn’s work with Huron Consulting, a global professional services firm that has worked with other universities on strategic plans and cost-saving measures.
“This administration is so lacking in vision that their plan to manage a budget shortfall is to take UConn from a world class public research university to a degree mill designed by higher education consultants who charge millions to recommend bigger classes, fewer courses, fewer majors, fewer faculty, and fewer graduate programs. Not the kind of place I would send my own child for an education,” said Allen.
Costley King’oo told CT Examiner that she was not sure how much other areas of the university, like administration and athletics, were being asked to cut.
Stephanie Reitz, spokesperson for the university, told CT Examiner in an email after publication that athletics had also been asked to reduce its costs by 15 percent. She noted that in the last year, the athletics department reduced the university funding it receives by more than $16 million.
Reitz also said that the high salaries for athletic coaches had nothing to do with UConn’s budget struggles.
“UConn competes to recruit and retain exceptional coaches in a national landscape in which compensation levels are largely driven by the market. Our coaches’ contracts reflect that highly competitive market. The university also competes to recruit and retain exceptional faculty and staff in their respective markets,” Reitz said in an email.
She also said the university had not eliminated any degree programs, increased class sizes or reduced academic supports.
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This story has been updated to include comments by Stephanie Reitz