COLLEGES TRAIL PRISONS IN FUNDS

Report Hits State Cuts In Higher Ed

For the first time in at least 35 years, Massachusetts is spending more on
prisons and jails than on public higher education, according to a report
released yesterday.

This year's state budget included $816 million in appropriations for
campuses and student financial aid, and $830 million for prisons and jails,
said the report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

"It says something very striking about the way that priorities have crept
up on us," said Cameron Huff, senior research associate at the
business-backed fiscal watchdog group. "You don't see the same cuts in
corrections because there's nobody to shift the cost onto. In higher
education, it's been students and parents who've been the shock absorbers."

Deep cuts to state spending on higher education have left the system of
state colleges and universities in "profound" disarray, the report said,
citing two eras of deep cuts that reduced state support to the same level
as three decades ago when adjusted for inflation. Higher education
appropriations were cut 29 percent between 1988 and 1992, and 27 percent
between 2001 and 2004.

Spending on higher education dropped from 6.5 percent of the state budget
at its peak in 1988 to less than 3.5 percent for the 2004 fiscal year, the
foundation said.

At the same time, spending on prisons grew an average of 8.4 percent per
year from 1992 to 2001, although growth has slowed to 1.3 percent per year
from 2001 to 2004. Despite the spending increases, the report said
overcrowding is an ongoing problem, with the state's prisons and jails
operating at 138 percent of capacity in the first quarter of 2003.

A spokeswoman for Governor Mitt Romney declined to comment on the report
yesterday, saying the administration had not had a chance to fully review it.

The University of Massachusetts system saw its state budget allocation
slashed an unprecedented 20 percent this year, to about $359 million, but
it may yet get a small boost. The House and Senate recently approved an
additional $38.7 million for union contracts, basic appropriations, and a
new facility for the UMass-Dartmouth's College of Visual & Performing Arts.
Romney, who has the ability to veto certain items, has yet to sign the
spending bill.

"We will continue to make the case that an investment in the University of
Massachusetts truly represents an investment in the Commonwealth's future,"
Jack Wilson, UMass interim president, said in a statement about the
taxpayer group's report.

The report said spending decisions "raise serious doubts about the ability
of even the most talented and dedicated leaders to build a first class
system," and that Romney and the Legislature should find bipartisan accord
on a way to stabilize spending and allow the state colleges and
universities to succeed over the long term.

Regarding prisons, the report suggested that the state extend parole
eligibility to nonviolent offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences and
adopt sentencing guidelines that would provide less expensive alternatives
to incarceration for first-time and nonviolent offenders.