In the aftermath of a legislative demand that the University System of Georgia cut more than $300 million from its fiscal 2011 budget, the University of West Georgia held three open meetings for students, faculty and staff, not to explain how its share of the cuts, $8.1 million, would be implemented, but to broadcast a call to action.

“What my hope is, indeed what the objective is of all the efforts of our students and our colleagues is to change some basic assumptions in the planning process of the Legislature that led to this figure of $8.1 million for West Georgia,” Dr. Beheruz Sethna, president of UWG, said Wednesday. “I would like to focus our efforts on making this plan not be implemented. That’s the major focus.”

In an effort to compensate for a worst-case-scenario budget shortfall of $1 billion, the Legislature is proposing cutting about a third of the deficiency, more than $300 million, from the USG while at the same time asking that tuition not be raised.

The cuts would devastate the colleges and universities across the state. They could lead to thousands of layoffs, enrollment caps, fewer classes along with larger class sizes, cuts in majors, academic programs and community outreach.

At UWG more than 300 jobs could be lost under the proposal. Majors could be cut. Some programs, including the African American Male Initiative, could lose its viability. Research would be cut considerably. Campus services, including information technology, would suffer because of loss of manpower.

Students at UWG are already mobilizing. They have organized a Facebook campaign, and began a passive protest Wednesday – students and many faculty were wearing black to “mourn the death of higher education.” The Student Government Association organized a phone bank to contact state legislators on Wednesday. A week from today, students will hold a protest on Maple Street on the front campus of the university at noon. UWG students, along with students across the state, will be marching on the state Capitol on March 15 to protest the cuts.

Katie Rice, Miss Wheelchair Georgia and a student at the university, was advertising her disapproval of the cuts on her wheelchair Wednesday.

“The budget cuts take away a lot of the disability services and vocational rehab and things like that would be cut,” Rice said. “Disability services has been a real gem for me.”

Through the vocational program, Rice receives support that allow her to maintain her grades, such as receiving text books online, counseling aimed for people with disabilities, testing for undiagnosed disabilities and other support that has helped her through the tough transition to college life.

“We need to be at least as good as the students,” Sethna said. “We need to make them (legislators) understand why higher education is so important.”

Besides the obvious effects of adding more people to the ranks of the unemployed – lower income tax and sales tax revenue – the financial benefits for the state of a college education are well documented. If 1 percent of Georgia’s high school graduates earned a bachelor’s degree it would increase state and local tax revenues $32 million a year, according to the U. S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2005-2007. The vast majority of the state prison population, 86 percent, hold a high school diploma or less, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. In addition, 64 cents of every financial assistance dollar in the state goes to people with no higher education, according to the same U.S. Census Bureau survey. The cuts would have an adverse effect on the entire Georgia economy because it would decrease the number of students who could continue their education.

The cuts will also hurt the local economies where the universities and colleges are located.

“While UWG’s economic contribution is about the 7th largest in the State, most of the institutions ahead of UWG are located in much larger economic regions, so the contribution of UWG’s economic engine, relative to the size of its regional economy, is very high,” Sethna wrote in his report submitted to the USG.

“Even if they don’t understand any of those logical arguments, they do understand votes,” Sethna said at the open meeting Wednesday. “They do understand that they’re re-election depends on votes.”

That’s why every phone call, every e-mail and every letter counts, he said.

Dr. Michael Hester, vice president of University Advancement, agreed.

“We don’t want them to think we’re the easy solution,” he said. “They’re going to take the easy solution. We don’t want to be that.”

Chancellor Erroll Davis, of the Board of Regents of the USG, delivered a proposed compromise to the legislators Wednesday morning. It also contains some extreme measures. Among the proposals are a 35 percent tuition increase, a $1,000 fee per student, salary cuts for employees of the system, shorter semesters, consolidation of some schools, an end to the fixed-for-four program that sets the tuition of a full-time freshman for the entire four years.

“That’s not what’s needed right now,” Rice said. “I think people have got to have their education, especially now with this economy going the way it is.”

University of West Georgia graduate student Will Avery, who led a group of students from across the state in a rally at the Gold Dome on Wednesday, called the proposed cuts “not acceptable.”

“Our best students will be going to other states that are going to support their education,” said Avery, a 29-year-old graduate student in history and education who hopes to be a history teacher. “Our best professors, our most well equipped professors, will go to other states to find jobs and situations where they can be provided with the best means to do their jobs.”

Among those in the audience were many who will likely be affected by the cuts to higher education, including several college presidents.

“The message was, they’re looking for balance,” said Georgia State University President Mark Becker. “At the end of the day, they expect the system to do its work.”