Faced with drastic budget cuts with more funding cuts on the horizon, Arizona State University president Michael Crow announced Wednesday that it will prepare to close its Polytechnic campus. Entire departments have already been cut in order to save money, but now an additional 2,500 university employees are on the verge of losing their jobs.

The Arizona legislature started its 2009 session last week with a $3 billion budget shortfall. The state’s universities and public schools have already born the brunt of the fiscal crisis. During the Fall semester, public schools in Mesa, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) laid off all of their school librarians. Class sizes have ballooned to upwards of 40 students in many schools. At the university level, all three of the state’s universities are feeling the crunch. The University of Arizona library canceled many of its journal and database subscriptions and put a moratorium on the purchase of new books to deal with a $1 million budget reduction.

Last week the Arizona State legislature announced that another $314 million would be eliminated from the higher education budget. In a letter to ASU faculty and staff, Michael Crow said:

I am deeply concerned for the future of Arizona State University. ASU has taken its share of budget cuts to help the state deal with its revenue shortfall — and we are prepared to do more. But Senate Appropriations Chair Russell Pearce and House Appropriations Chair John Kavanagh, without considering the full array of options, have singled out education for the largest cuts. Their plan would reverse all of the progress ASU has made and set the institution back a decade or more.

ASU has already taken more than $37 million in state funding cuts and prepared for further reductions by eliminating a total of 500 staff positions and 200 faculty associate positions. We have disestablished schools and merged academic departments while managing to preserve academic quality.

On top of these cuts, the Pearce and Kavanagh proposal would require ASU to cut another $70 million, or 35% of our remaining state funding, in less than five months.

To replace the funding cuts that have already been made, in-state tuition would have to be raised to $11,000 per student, placing a college education out of reach for the majority of students. ‘œWe could eliminate the nursing school, the journalism school, the law school and the engineering school and still not meet these cuts,’ Crow said. ‘œIt’s hard for people to understand the scale.’

Jan Brewer, Arizona’s secretary of state and incoming governor, has not yet taken a position regarding higher education budget cuts. But this week’s protests at all three universities will force Brewer to take a stand. Approximately 1000 students showed up to protest at campuses in Tucson, Tempe, and Flagstaff to tell the state legislature that they shouldn’t be the sacrificial lambs offered up to balance the budget. Next week they plan to head to the state capitol to meet legislators face to face and fight the proposed budget cuts.

I don’t think the impact of these budget cuts can really be adequately summarized at this point. The most obvious impact is the loss of jobs. Professors, administrators, janitors, groundskeepers, food service workers . . . all of these people are about to collect unemployment if ASU closes their Polytechnic campus. One of the nice things about being a state employee is the cushy benefits. Unemployment might be less than a full salary, but it’s still money the state will have to pay. All of the state employees who are vested in their mandatory state retirement plans now have the option of cashing out and taking their money to private retirement funds, which means even less money in the state’s coffers. How does this make sense?

Aside from the very predictable monetary results of this decision, there are long term consequences to consider. If all of the current and potential college students leave the state, where does that leave the rental housing industry and all of the businesses that rely on college students for a customer and employee base? The state’s budget quandry is a result of the housing bust because up until last year, the state’s economy was driven by the construction industry. If the universities shut down, what kind of jobs will be left in the state?

If you live in Arizona, sign up for the Facebook group Arizonans Against Proposed Education Budget Cuts to keep up to date on the latest news and protest details. PLEASE write a letter to your state legislator and demand that they reject these cuts. I’ll be keeping our readers in the loop.