UOG president says accreditation, essential programs could be lost if budget request not fulfilled

The University of Guam says it cannot sustain another deep budget cut, as it had to do in the immediate years past.

UOG president, Dr. Thomas Krise is making a very public plea for senators to provide the school with its full budget request this coming school year. Otherwise, accreditation could be threatened, and important programs could face.

"We've had a historic run of 16 years continuous accreditation, the longest we've ever had in our 70-year history, and that's at risk this year because we've had a serious decline in our funding since 2018," he said. "So it's a 23 percent dollar value drop in these five years, its a 35-percent drop in inflation adjusted terms. That's a dramatic reduction in support of the university."

Krise says the funding cuts can't continue, and threaten all the progress the university has made over the years.

That's why he's taking the unusual step of appealing to the community, ahead of the actual budget hearing.

"We're losing people, we have 77 vacancies, it's a serious situation and we really need the public's support of the university to get back to where we were five years ago," Krise said. 

We'll have the full interview with Krise in an upcoming edition of "The Hub."