An important part of the job of The Daily Campus Editorial Board is building and holding institutional knowledge about the University of Connecticut for students. As students we enter and move on from this university usually in a span of four years. In between adjusting to life in this new place and eventually preparing to move on from it, we are somewhat expected as students to impact the community in a meaningful way. However, it’s hard to learn enough about this university to make meaningful change while also dealing with the other responsibilities of college life. In terms of the state of UConn, we students tend to focus on current events and developments, failing to see the bigger picture. Yet, the problems plaguing UConn are anything but new, and understanding how they represent larger systemic problems within this university and the state as a whole is important to making meaningful change.
When talking about UConn’s current budget crisis, the typical discourse surrounding this problem has focused on the contributing factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, American Rescue Plan Act funds and the ongoing funding issues within the state of Connecticut caused by the government’s “fiscal guardrails”. Although these factors are incredibly important, and ought to be talked about, they do not exist in a vacuum. What truly needs to be understood in order to address the current budget crisis is the history of UConn’s development and its ties to state funding.
To start, Governor Ned Lamont has used the claim that UConn’s state funding is at record levels. In terms of baseline appropriations, he is not entirely incorrect, but the statement is out of context. According to a CT Insider analysis, state appropriations when adjusted for inflation are actually significantly lower than in past years going as far back three decades. Specifically, when taking inflation into account, UConn’s baseline state appropriations have been higher than they currently are in 1992, 2000, 2009 and 2016 to the degree of many tens of millions in extra funding compared to now. When inflation is taken into account, state funding has actually been generally declining for about 30 years.
Yet, during this same amount of time, UConn greatly expanded its expenditures, opting to rely more on student tuition and fees for funding instead of state support. Specifically, in Fiscal year 2000, state funding made up about 52% of UConn’s total budgeting. As of 2017 this number dwindled to about 28%. As of FY2022 this number has further gone down to about 25.3%, according to data from the Connecticut Mirror.
UConn’s strong increase in funding despite stagnation from the state has come from drastically increased tuition. Instate tuition and fees in the year 2000 cost about $5,400, and for this current school year that number has increased to over $21,000, about a 400% increase since 2000. This coincided with an increase in the number of students per faculty member which began in 1994, creating a less individualized student experience. Instead of hiring more faculty as a response, UConn prioritized increasing the amount of management and executive positions, as well as the pay those positions received.
The times where the legislature has been most interested in monetarily supporting UConn have largely been focused on capital expenditures. In 1995, the state legislature began what would end up being a decades long process to revolutionize UConn’s campuses, colloquially known as “UConn 2000.” This plan, along with subsequent extensions, authorized the use of at least $5.4 billion in state bonds with planning oversight to ensure the money was only going to aggressively expand each campus.
Connecting these various historical trends now reveals a theme about the nature of UConn and this school’s current position. This is to say, the problems that UConn faces have deep historical roots, heavily intertwined within the context of the state to which it belongs. The expansion of campus despite clear lack of institutional stability, the shift of cost burden onto students, the alienation of poor and minority communities through exponential cost increases and the steady decline of state support for its flagship university are trends which developed today’s plight by the permission of both UConn and Connecticut’s leadership. These same trends created the shaky financial situation that was eventually exacerbated by COVID-19 to put UConn in the place it is now.
The point to understanding all this niche historical knowledge about UConn’s funding and growth over the past 30 odd years is because it reflects upon the way that we live now in much bigger ways than just UConn. It acts as a mirror onto which we can see the same dysfunction within the state of Connecticut and, more broadly, the U.S. too. These levels of culture, national, regional and local ties are all part of each other. If we understand that, learning about and trying to improve UConn is part of the process of trying to improve the entire society we live in. All change starts small, it could start here too, if only we have the knowledge and ability to make it happen.