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Greg Knight has lived in Alaska all his life.
This is where he went to school, raised his family and planned to retire. But after the recent government veto Mike Dunleavy on the state budget, which cut $ 130 million in state funding for the University of Alaska system Knight said he could be forced to leave his beloved state.
When he heard the news, he started packing the house he owned in Anchorage for 20 years.
"It's heartbreaking," he said, but equivalent jobs simply do not exist in this state. "If that happens, I could be unemployed in a 60-day case."
Knight, 53, is a director of finance at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, a job he does not think is possible if the veto persists. "I'm going to have to leave Alaska," he said.
If Dunleavy succeeds, the university says it will have to eliminate 1,300 jobs, shut down entire campuses, fire teachers and set up academic programs. "We may not even be able to mow the lawn," Chancellor Cathy Sandeen told NBC News.
Lawmakers and university administrators knew that the state would reduce the budget by $ 5 million, which seemed manageable and predictable as Alaska reduced its financial support to its university system four times out of five. But the additional $ 130 million added by the Republican governor's veto, which allowed a 41% cut in state funding, blinded the university.
The state legislature has until July 12 to cancel the veto, but it needs the support of three quarters of lawmakers. Political experts believe that the battle will be tough and that they will have to vote quickly – for the moment, it depends on about six undecided Republicans.
If cuts occur, "the university will change dramatically overnight," Sandeen said. She and others say Knight is not the only one to leave the state and fears an imminent brain drain.
"It would take decades to repair this damage," Sandeen said. "We would see a reduction in student enrollment.
Sandeen, who has worked in public higher education for the past 30 years across the country, said, "I've never seen cuts of this magnitude."
Alaska is not the only one struggling to get funding for its university system through the state. The Center's research on fiscal and policy priorities shows that 45 states received state funding in 2018, well below pre-recession levels – increasing tuition fees, reducing opportunities academic and student services, and dissuading low-income students from enrolling, all while student debt increased significantly. But the northernmost state is unique because of its geography and the size of the cuts.
The University of Alaska has three universities and 16 campuses, some of which are not accessible by land. A large portion of the students, whose median age is 25, work while studying and go to the nearest regional campus. The three main campuses have only 5 to 10% of student housing on campus. About 16% of students enrolled in the system in the fall of 2018 were Alaska Native people, many of whom wished to remain on their tribal lands while in school. If the cuts are implemented, the regional campuses will close and the students will have no other place to go.
The cuts are worrying Sandeen for many reasons, but she focuses on their "human costs". She says her college will lose 700 jobs. "There will not be 700 replacement jobs for these people," she said. "Meanwhile, in the lower 48, the economy and the job market are hot."
Jim Johnsen, president of the system of the University of Alaska, has the same concerns. Alaska's population is declining and its unemployment rate is 6.4%, the highest in the country. Johnsen says that the isolation of the state aggravates this problem.
"If we lay off workers, they will not walk the street to find another job in another company because we are." Alaska has virtually no private institutions for four years, and its resources are tiny and complex. schools affiliated with a religion.
The Dunleavy office did not respond to a request for comment, but recently said: "In recent years, we have used $ 14 billion of our savings to subsidize the government. world agrees, is not sustainable. "
If the cuts are implemented, Johnsen will have to abandon entire programs and highly qualified professionals and university researchers will leave. Even more, students will turn to other states for their higher education, especially because Alaska has reciprocal tuition fees with other western states. This worries Johnsen, who thinks the cuts will aggravate the "brain drain": only 20% of students who leave Alaska to pursue higher education return after graduation.
With the disorder of the state education system, he fears that this is not just a brain drain.
"It's a brain that springs," he said.
Unique programs in Alaska will also disappear. Many regional campuses are found primarily in Native communities in Alaska and offer programs in Native Languages and Cultures from Alaska that, like all programs, will be subject to discounts. This is one of the many reasons why the cuts are worrying Sara Eliza Johnson, an English professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She says the cuts will force some Aboriginal students to "choose between leaving tribal lands for quality education outside the state and staying home to participate in their cultural communities."
"The effect of training will be devastating," she said.
Knight said he does not expect the veto to be canceled and is preparing to put his home in Anchorage on the market. He and his wife plan to settle in Oklahoma, where they have a family, or in Oregon, where he sees job opportunities.
"I'm an accountant, I've spent my life working with numbers," he said. "But that also concerns the people of the state."
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