The Daily Campus

Issue date: 2/12/09 Section: Commentary

The cuts Gov. M. Jodi Rell has proposed - and will likely make - to the UConn budget are a mistake.

As the economy of our nation tumbled, Connecticut managed to eke by surprisingly well for quite a while. Yet the fiscal hammer was bound to fall eventually - Connecticut's economy has always centered around Fairfield County, its growth rates and its GDP, all of which were consistently above state levels. The county grossed $2.9 billion dollars in 2006, far more than any other in the state. Yet, Fairfield County is heavily dependent on hedge funds in Westport, Stamford and Greenwich, investment agencies and financial services; these are precisely the things that have been, perhaps deservedly, hit hardest by the current recession.

Still while cuts are obviously necessary, aiming them at UConn - and the higher education system of this state in general - is a poor move on the state's behalf from a simple economic perspective. Much like Connecticut itself, in regards to the federal government, UConn, in regards to the state, gives much more than it receives.

Last year, UConn's total budget ran to $1.6 billion, of which $700 million went toward the UConn Health Center alone. The state provided about 35 percent of UConn's funding overall. The Storrs and regional campuses are a relative bargain to the state, costing about $300 million in 2007.

So, the second-richest state, per-capita, in the U.S. only has to dish out $300 million per year for its premiere institution of higher learning. There's an argument in itself to spare UConn the butcher's axe. But it gets better. Including its regional campuses and the Health Center, UConn provides enormous economic benefits to the state far beyond its costs. For every dollar given to UConn by the state, $5.05 is added to the state's GDP as a direct result of the university's operations. The university supplies 29,000 jobs; seven out of 10 UConn graduates remain in-state; in fact, the state ultimately makes $76 million more from tax returns than it pays out to the university. And the state is still angling to cut UConn's budget!

It's not only ungrateful, it's stupid. Simply put, UConn represents an investment opportunity for the state with a proven 505-percent return. What other investment available to the state could possibly post such incredible numbers? Put another way, by cutting UConn's budget, the state is essentially cheating itself out of it its own money.

You've got to spend money to make money, even when times are bad. Just ask John Maynard Kenyes. Or F.D.R. Or, if your séance skills aren't quite up to snuff, Barack Obama.

Just don't ask Rell, apparently.

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