Using State Aid To End Rutgers Strike Could Be ‘Pandora's Box,' Lawmakers Warn

By Dana DiFilippo, New Jersey Monitor

- April 12, 2023

For weeks, leaders of New Jersey’s public colleges and universities have begged the state publicly and privately for more money as they grapple with plummeting enrollment, inflation, and other problems that worsened during the pandemic.

Now, with Gov. Phil Murphy’s suggestion on Tuesday that state funding could help Rutgers University end its ongoing faculty strike, some lawmakers warn of the message any potential bailout might send to other cash-strapped schools.

“This is one state school. We have multiple state schools. Is this going to happen every time there is a labor dispute, where the governor comes in with taxpayer dollars to settle it? You can really open up a Pandora’s box here,” said Assemblyman Gerald Scharfenberger (R-Monmouth), who sits on the Assembly’s higher education and budget committees.

He added: “It sets a very dangerous precedent and has the potential to change the face of negotiations. If you know there will be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you just wait it out long enough, it may make you less incentivized to come to an agreement.”

Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin (D-Essex), who chairs the Assembly’s budget committee, pointed to existential crises at other New Jersey schools that make her question using state funds to end Rutgers’ strike. Bloomfield College, faced with closure, is now in the midst of merging with Montclair State University, while financial troubles have driven New Jersey City University and William Paterson University to cut staff and academic programs.

“How do you start picking one over the other? How do you make it that one deserves more attention than the other? Because obviously, they’re very different in everything that they do and the populations that they serve,” Pintor Marin said.

Sagging state support

Six weeks ago, Murphy released his $53.1 billion state budget plan, in which state support for most of New Jersey’s 31 public colleges and universities either flatlined or fell.

At a special legislative hearing two weeks later, higher education administrators pleaded for more money and repeated some of the same warnings they’d made a year before — that dwindling state support forced them to take on growing debt and cut jobs, sports programs, and academic offerings.

Monday, about 9,000 Rutgers professors and instructors who have been working without a contract since July 1 walked off the job after they hit a stalemate with university administrators in their bid for higher wages and greater equity between educators on different campuses and of differing demographics and roles.

In response, Murphy during a radio interview Tuesday said the state could use the budget and state funding to help Rutgers end the contract impasse.

While legislators welcomed an end to the strike, some aren’t so sure state dollars are the way to do it.

Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Somerset), a Princeton University educator who joined the Rutgers picket line Wednesday in solidarity, serves on the Senate’s higher education and budget committees.

“We are responsible for being good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars, and we know that there are other institutions that have significant financial problems, including significant debt. We do have to put it into the bigger perspective of: Is the solution truly to add more money?” Zwicker said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable to say that the role of the state is to just come in and bail the schools out. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Others, though, seemed ready to write a check.

“With the budget surplus we have now, there will be no better time than now to assist these universities,” said Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly (D-Passaic), vice chairman of the Assembly’s budget committee.

Nobody wants a strike, Wimberly added.

“We, as legislators, and the administration have to step in,” he said. “This is the state institution. This is Rutgers, our state college, and the only people that are going to be hurt during this process are going to be the students. So I think we have to step in.”

Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex), who chairs the Assembly’s higher education committee, said she is “quite comfortable” using state funding to resolve Rutgers’ contract impasse.

Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) joins Rutgers faculty and students on the picket line on April 10, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Assemblywoman Mile Jasey)

“How can we possibly be unwilling to spend dollars to retain these highly qualified educators and talented support staff who are integral to the tremendous academic reputation that Rutgers enjoys?” Jasey said. “The demands of these professionals — for job security, a fair wage, and affordable health benefits — are reasonable, and they deserve no less. If state funding is needed to accomplish this laudable goal, then it is money well spent.”

Systemic issues

Scharfenberger, though, pointed out that contracts typically just last three or four years, and any state boost would be a “temporary” solution that wouldn’t fix universities’ longstanding woes.

“Any money you put in there now will only temporarily plug the hole. When the cycle comes up for renewal, where’s that money going to come from?” he said.

He suggested universities could follow the lead of community colleges, where enrollments have inched up in part because they can be more nimble in evolving with the changing workforce and have created more vocational degree programs.

Struggling colleges also should tighten their belts and eye bloated administrations for cuts, said Scharfenberger, who’s also an adjunct professor at Monmouth University.

“You don’t have to go in with an ax. But some positions are not really necessary to the mission of the school, which is providing education and a viable path to earn a living. Those are the core missions, and anything else is extraneous,” he said.

Zwicker said many of the issues that arose in the Rutgers strike — colleges’ reliance on adjunct professors, concerns about rising tuition and affordability, and sagging state support – are systemic challenges that require sustainable solutions. Without a fix, New Jersey’s notorious brain drain, with more than 30,000 high schoolers leaving the state for college every year, will continue, he said.

He expects lawmakers will tackle those issues and more at a joint legislative hearing on higher education tentatively set for May 1.

“We have got to evaluate our entire system from top to bottom so that we have a long-term viability of high-quality public education,” Zwicker said. “We want students to stay in Jersey to get the best education they possibly can. That’s going to take a lot of work.”

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