The University System of New Hampshire (USNH) schools face a state budget cut that could range from Gov. Ayotte’s proposed 8 percent reduction to the NH House of Representatives’ 30 percent cut. Faculty and students are equally concerned about the future of higher education in New Hampshire.
Students said they share worries about the proposed cuts, expressing unease and concern over the situation.
“I just believe that [the budget cuts] are going to make getting an education harder for some people,” senior Stephen Lucas said. “I know there is more that goes into it than that, but it’s just not something you want to see, especially from a student perspective.”
First-year Alex Willard said he is similarly concerned that the budget cuts will further harm USNH schools, stating that he believes “education would decline and the overall quality of student life would go down.”
Moses Fisher, a senior, expressed worries about future students’ ability to afford college, including his siblings.
“I know the schools are doing the best they can, given that their federal funding is slashed,” Fisher said. “I don’t know what people are going to do. I rely on federal funding to pay for school; I couldn’t go otherwise. In a world where higher education is becoming increasingly necessary, I don’t know if I have other thoughts other than it looks really grim, and I am pretty nervous about future students and my brothers and sisters.”
Nick Germana, a professor of history at KSC and a member of the N.H. House of Representatives, said USNH schools find themselves in this situation because the state has repeatedly reduced revenue sources since 2015. Germana said reductions in the business enterprise and business profits tax, and more recently, the interest and dividends tax, contribute to the issue.
“These taxes apply to disproportionately large out-of-state corporations,” Germana said. “That’s why some of the business taxes were cut, for companies like Walmart, Apple, and Amazon to try and lure them to the state.”
Germana continued, noting the interest and dividends tax applies only to the wealthiest individuals in the state, meaning these large corporations and affluent individuals benefit from tax cuts, resulting in a substantial loss in state revenue.
“We’re seeing the effect of that now, where the current situation we are in … is the result of the fact that we have been extremely irresponsible with the state’s finances,” said Germana. “First of all, we don’t need to be in this situation. Second of all, even in the situation that we’re in, where we have a lot less revenue than we should have, much better choices could be made.”
He added that while state officials are claiming they cannot afford funding for the universities, the Council on the Arts, and the Office of the Child Advocate, they also want to “make the poorest families in the state who are receiving Medicaid basically pay an income tax on their Medicaid benefits.”
“They are also blowing the roof off our state voucher system. They call these education freedom accounts, but these are vouchers that go to private schools, mainly religious schools; [it is] taxpayer money,” Germana explained. “This was a program that was supposed to cost $300,000 when it was put in place in 2021, and now costs about $30,000,000 a year and could eventually go as high as $100,000,000 a year with no cap on how much it will cost.”
Germana asserted that while state officials say they can’t afford all these expenses, they also claim that the state will simply remove the cap on the vouchers. He noted that “the average Granite Stater is actually going to be subsidizing private school education for some of the wealthiest people in our state.”
While Germana expressed concern over these budget cuts, he does not believe they will reach the House’s proposed 30 percent reduction.
“I think the Senate’s version will probably be closer to the governor’s; if I had to guess, I’d say somewhere around 10-12 percent,” he said. “It’s difficult to say; if I were wagering, it would be closer to the governor’s.”
Dominic Rubio can be contacted at
drubio@kscequinox.com
