RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, New Brunswick, NJ – Rutgers University needs to reexamine its priorities.
Its focus must be on the quality education and cutting-edge research that have propelled Rutgers into the ranks of the nation’s finest public universities, making it a draw for students around the world. Cuts being proposed by Rutgers’ administration threaten this core mission by removing some of our most effective and experienced faculty.
The administration is forcing academic departments in New Brunswick to cut at least 100 classes and, in the process, to eliminate the jobs of dozens of adjunct faculty – all to address a fictional budget shortfall created through accounting sleights-of-hand.
Contrary to the administration’s claims, Rutgers is among the most financially healthy institutions in New Jersey. It has turned budget surpluses in recent fiscal years, experienced enrollment growth, and has a vast real estate portfolio. In both of the last two years, Rutgers total enrollment was up more than 3%, and a tuition increase is planned for Fall 2026. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the university’s unrestricted reserves have grown by more than 50%, as has its endowment, which now exceeds $2 billion. Just last month, Moody’s Ratings affirmed Rutgers’ strong Aa3 issuer, revenue bond, and lease revenue bond ratings, which are critical to its financial stability.
Despite this, on March 6, the School of Arts and Sciences sent letters to 38 lecturers, as adjuncts are known, notifying them that they would not be needed in the fall. University officials say this was a “precautionary” measure because Friday was the contractual deadline for notification, and that many may be rehired. Rutgers is using a provision intended to protect adjuncts from last-minute hiring and firing decisions against them.
Many of those laid off are highly experienced teachers, newly entitled to the multi-semester appointments the unions won in the 2023 strike. Lecturers are the most vulnerable members of the faculty; they teach on short-term contracts, are paid per class, and seldom qualify for health benefits. Many struggle to make ends meet. These cuts undermine the gains they made, intended to provide a degree of job security. They are especially egregious, given that the unions are beginning negotiations for our next contracts. As representatives of the nearly 9,000 faculty at Rutgers, we cannot accept these cuts or these violations of our hard-won contracts.
“Not only will these cuts be devastating for our members, but our students will suffer, and these cuts are wholly unnecessary,” said Heather Pierce, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union. “They will deprive students of many of the most dedicated and experienced teachers who make Rutgers what it is.”
Lecturers teach about a third of all classes across the university, and their loss will have a ripple effect on how the university operates and on students’ experience during their four years as Scarlet Knights. Rutgers sees itself as a world-class academic and research institution, but the cuts will damage the university and the community it serves.
“Students, who have seen their tuition increase annually, will face a combination of higher class sizes, limited class choices, and difficulties finishing their degrees,” said Rutgers AAAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan. “Rutgers has an obligation to the people of New Jersey to offer a robust, well-rounded curriculum befitting a major research university where students receive a broad, rigorous education.”
Adjuncts account for more than 7% of total revenues, but their compensation accounts for less than 1% of the university’s budget. The money “saved” by these cuts is minimal and could easily have been found in wasteful spending rather than in essential teachers’ salaries.
“Our message to Rutgers leadership is simple: Budgets are about priorities,” Pierce said. “Those leading the university can and must choose to prioritize its academic mission.”
The question is not whether Rutgers has the money. The real question is whether it has the vision and the will to make the right choices for its students, faculty, staff, and the larger community.
###
Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents more than 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and EOF counselors at the state university’s three main campuses and beyond. Our union is one of the oldest higher ed unions in the country, negotiating collective bargaining agreements for full-time faculty since 1970 and graduate workers since 1972.
The Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union represents roughly 3,000 lecturers overall. Lecturers work in nearly every department at Rutgers, teaching at least 30% of all undergraduate courses, and hundreds more work in our professional and graduate schools. Adjunct faculty voted to unionize in 1988.