Bordonaro: UConn right to consider elimination of low-enrollment programs

Hartford Business Journal The University of Connecticut

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Some of UConn’s unionized professors have raised concerns about school administrators’ efforts to examine, and potentially eliminate, low-enrollment academic programs.

Greg Bordonaro

While those worries may be understandable, UConn is right to analyze the supply and demand for its majors to determine the best return on investment for both students and taxpayers.

At a time when UConn is facing budget constraints, and the cost of higher education continues to rise, public universities should be held more accountable for how they spend money.

We’ve already seen recent examples of excess by the head of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, which has led to various calls, including from Gov. Ned Lamont, for independent audits of spending within the CSCU system.

UConn, which is not part of the CSCU system, is slated to receive $328 million in state funding in the current fiscal year, but is still trying to close a $17.6 million deficit that the school says is being driven by “salary increases negotiated through collective bargaining at the state level.”

UConn is projecting an even bigger deficit next fiscal year — $72.8 million — as one-time federal pandemic aid dries up.

Lamont has warned that the state’s public colleges will need to tighten their belts in the year ahead.

Taking a critical look at enrollment trends across all majors and programs should be part of that effort.

In fact, state lawmakers should mandate that UConn and other public universities submit annual reports that identify low-enrollment programs and the efforts being undertaken to improve or eliminate them.

The reality is, UConn can’t be everything to everyone, despite being the state’s flagship university. Resources being used to support underutilized programs ought to be redirected elsewhere, particularly to in-demand fields in science, technology, engineering or math.

UConn’s evaluation process identified 70 low-enrollment and low-completion academic programs. Fewer than 100 students completed each of those programs over the last five years, according to the university.

Programs on the assessment list range from women’s gender and sexuality studies, to art history and Italian literary and cultural studies.

During an Oct. 30 UConn Board of Trustees meeting, Chairman Daniel Toscano said only “a small fraction” of the low-enrollment programs face the possibility of actually being cut.

He tried to put to rest concerns raised by the school’s faculty union, which has argued, among other things, that the review process has been moving too quickly and without proper consideration, according to media reports.

Toscano defended the school’s evaluation process, noting that any significant changes to academic programs will be reviewed and debated by the Board of Trustees in open session — as they should.

Most importantly, he said the university and its faculty “cannot be afraid at the prospect of change.”

“The world changes slowly over time, and universities need to do the same to try to stay ahead of the curve, not burying our heads in the sand and pretending that self-examination is bad and that programs must exist in perpetuity,” he said.

Toscano is right — self-examination is not a bad thing. Our public institutions ought to do more of it.