BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE
For too long, Connecticut State Universities have struggled to receive proper funding. It’s time to provide our students the superior education they deserve.
When it comes to higher education institutions in the state of Connecticut, all that glitters is not gold. Yes, students have many enticing options in our small state. There is an Ivy, a flagship with satellites, options for the faithful, and numerous small and very private bastions of the liberal arts. Most of these institutions are impeccably landscaped and some are nationally celebrated. But the jewel in Connecticut’s education crown is hiding in plain sight: the Connecticut State Universities (CSUs) — Central, Eastern, Southern and Western. It is the four CSUs that have transformed countless student lives, families and communities. More so than any other institutions, the CSUs have changed Connecticut for the better.
While other education institutions import students and borrow them for a few years, students at the CSUs come from Connecticut and after they graduate remain in Connecticut. The graduates of the CSUs are your neighbors, they are our taxpayers, they are our state.
And the CSUs build Connecticut in all directions. They open doors for students by ensuring they have fulfilling careers, higher incomes and increased health and happiness. They open the minds of the state’s future leaders, employees and employers by providing them with the up-to-date knowledge and skills to adapt to new problems, new technologies and new jobs.
Graduates and employers alike know that the CSUs have top-rate faculty, librarians, counselors, coaches and trainers, who define themselves by putting in the time and effort to help students achieve their maximum potential.
Our state universities are a resource for all the residents of Connecticut. By giving any person who wants a comprehensive university education the opportunity to achieve one, especially those marginalized by race, class, immigration status, age, sexuality, religion, or disability, the CSUs compress the distance that exists between East and West Hartford, between Bridgeport and Westport.
Because of their commitment to real equity and excellence, the CSUs are uniquely positioned to lead Connecticut to a better future. Now is the time to fulfill their promise. We are living in an exciting moment. As our legislative session begins, the state has a $1 billion surplus. What are we going to do with that money? If we are wise, we will fully fund the CSUs, making them engines of inclusion and prosperity for all of our residents. In so doing, we will position Connecticut to be an education destination that attracts and retains families and businesses by providing them with a world-class system of public higher education right on their doorstep.
For too long the four CSUs have struggled to get proper funding. Investing in the CSUs would help them reach their full potential. With adequate funding the CSUs can open doors to success for students by removing obstacles to enrollment and degree competition, such as excessively high tuition, food and housing insecurities, childcare and mental health difficulties. Adequate funding will make it easier for faculty to provide individual attention to students, stay up to date in their fields, and recruit and retain new talent from all over the country and world. We will be able to provide our Connecticut students the superior education they deserve.
Faculty members are aware of the universities’ financial problems that have been exacerbated recently by declining enrollment. But long before COVID, the CSUs were in crisis. This was largely caused by decades of state disinvestment. Reduction in state funding of the CSUs has been offset by rising tuition. This has created a vicious cycle where increased tuition deters students, especially low-income students, from enrolling in universities. Austerity measures make it difficult to retain and graduate students; faculty and staff increasingly have less time and resources to adequately support and mentor students and provide them with the best training and skills possible. This cycle must be ended and now is the time to do it.
regulations also limit where a liquor store may operate.
Turning grocery stores into alcohol emporiums would be a damaging mistake. One reason is the risk of violating rules such as not selling to under-age buyers. If a package store were caught selling alcohol to a 19-year-old, for example, state regulators could shut down the store. It can do that temporarily, or it can yank the store’s license and put it out of business.
When a grocery store violates its beer license, state regulators are not going to shutter it. The grocery story may lose its license to sell beer (and wine if this bill passes) but it would continue to sell food and other merchandise to its customers. The incentive to enforce the state’s restrictions on the purchase and sale of alcohol becomes diluted. That’s a risk the public should not be required to assume.
Checkout technology allows a grocery store to operate with fewer employees. Customers often scan, pay for and bag their own purchases with no contact with a grocery store employee. Beer should prompt the automated checkout to summon a store employee to confirm the customer’s age and sobriety. The incentive to confront an underage or inebriated customer is not as urgent in a grocery store as in a package store, often operated by its owner.
The grocery store association campaign to win the right to sell wine claims alcohol tax revenues to the state will increase. That will be offset by a hefty increase in enforcement costs for new state inspectors. This is a price we should not be required to pay.