By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – Since unemployment has been on the rise, more and more people are turning to higher education. But because of budget cuts, what do you do when higher education has to turn you away? I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
University officials across Texas have about one week left to submit their official budget cuts. The state ordered them to help offset a current shortfall. The University of North Texas, Texas A&M and the entire U-T system froze hiring and travel this week. The goal is for public universities and colleges to cut spending by 7%. The sad and ironic part is students will suffer.
As reported in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, thousands of students will be turned away from the Dallas County Community College District. One of two summer sessions will be eliminated throughout the seven-college system. About 15,000 students typically sign-up for that second five-week session. Maybe you were one of the 4,800 students planning on attending the popular three-week mini-semester in May. Forget that - it too was eliminated. So what's going to happen to these almost 20,000 students? Are they going to be crammed into classes at other times or are they going have to forfeit their higher education? It's too early to tell. But it's anticipated many people who use these sessions to juggle work, family and education will probably have to do without the latter.
I don't know if Governor Perry and friends realize when they ordered the $700 million budget cut last week that in fact they were hurting the economic future they are trying to preserve. William Wenrich, chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District, told the Morning News, "If you want a prosperous economy, you have to have trained people. We're the people who do that." As Manufacturing experienced the largest layoffs of any industry, education and retraining is the only way a lot of these unemployed workers can grow in the changing economy. Cut off their education and you cut off their future. For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.