Posted inEducation

CSCU regents adopt tuition hikes, consolidation framework

Updated at 8:13 p.m.
The Board of Regents for Higher Education adopted tuition increases that will eliminate more than half the $35-million budget deficit the state’s largest public college system is facing in the next fiscal year. The board also adopted the framework of a plan to dramatically consolidate the administrative and operational structures of many of the system’s colleges.

Posted inEducation

What cuts loom at your community college or regional university?

“This is a very challenging budget that we are looking at,” said Mark Ojakian, the president of the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system. “Times of crisis are a time of opportunity. We are going to have to do business differently. We are not going to be able to sustain even this level of funding in the future. It’s going to be tough.”

Posted inCT Viewpoints

Eliminating college program approval regs is the right choice for CT

If you owned your own restaurant and wanted to create some new signature meals to attract new patrons and increase your competitiveness, how would you feel if you had to wait for state government officials to review your suggested dishes, taste those recipes and approve their preparation before you could offer them to customers? To make matters worse, what if that process could take a year or more and, meanwhile, up the street and in surrounding towns, other restaurants were not restricted from changing up their menus as and when they saw fit? For many of Connecticut’s private non-profit universities and colleges, this hypothetical example of unnecessary government oversight is analogous to a program-development challenge we are facing.

Posted inCT Viewpoints

Ojakian on tuition hikes –What a difference a day makes

March 22, former Chief of Staff to Gov. Dannel Malloy and current Board of Regents President Mark E. Ojakian stated, “I have consistently said I am not going balance the state’s financial burden on the back of our students.” March 23, he is asking for a painful 5 percent increase in tuition costs for the 88,000 students in two and four year programs at State Universities and Community Colleges.

Posted inEducation, Money, Politics

Legislature considers furloughs; judiciary cancels raises

Underscoring the fiscal crisis facing Connecticut, the General Assembly is considering furloughs of legislative staff, a rollback of staff raises, and a rare rejection of a negotiated contract. Meanwhile, the Judicial Branch has canceled raises for non-union employees that were to take effect Friday.

Posted inEducation

As professor racks up convictions, CSCU unable to consider them in employment decisions

What’s a college president to do with a professor who keeps getting arrested in his spare time? And if a professor is disciplined in connection with his job, should students and the public be able to find out? At the regional Connecticut State Universities, the answers to those questions will soon be sorted out.