In our spotlight on Business Report.

New Jersey's public schools aren't the only ones bracing for potential state aid cuts.

Governor Murphy's recently proposed budget would cut $20 million to community colleges, a direct reversal from last year's $20 million boost the colleges received.

A senior correspondent, Joanna Gagis reports.

It comes at a time community college president say more people are seeking out their institutions for affordability and badly needed resources.

We're going to look at whether they need to raise tuition, which they clearly don't want to do.

Do they need to remove programs, reduce programs, reduce student services, lay off staff?

These are all decisions that none of our colleges want to confront.

But their decisions.

Each of New Jersey's 18 community colleges are facing because Governor Murphy's proposed budget for the next fiscal year cuts state funding to those schools by $20 million.

That's 12% cut in one year.

That's a significant reduction.

Aaron Fichtner with the Council of County Colleges says New Jersey's county schools are already among the lowest funded in the nation.

They serve 230,000 students per year.

And with the reduction in state aid, college presidents say the costs will likely pass on to them.

If we do not want to cut the services, then we'll be forced to call the students to pay more.

And that is what we're trying to avoid.

If the cuts go through as proposed, do you anticipate raising tuition?

Oh, I think we would have to.

I mean, you know, we've got to provide some level of service to our students.

And unfortunately, especially, we're also at a time of, you know, some moderate inflation right now.

So, you know, our electric costs are going to go up.

Those types of things.

We're going to have additional costs.

So I'd love to not pass it on to the students.

But the reality is we will have to pass some of it.

A group of Republican lawmakers who represent Sussex, Morris and Warren counties have called the cuts astounding and are asking the governor and legislature to restore the funding before the budget is finalized, saying in a statement, New Jersey simply cannot afford to continually underfund community colleges.

They play a vital role in our state's workforce development efforts and provide affordable access to a diverse body of students.

Students who are likely to be from low socioeconomic areas and first generation college students, says Essex County College President Augustine Boakye.

Most student cannot afford to come to the college, and what hurts is that we will continue to see the equity gap that we've been trying to close over the last few years.

And there could be teacher layoffs and salary freezes.

Plus, biology will have to cut back on expanding mental health programs that his students desperately need, along with other supports like food pantries for hungry students.

I myself use those services.

So if those services are, we get budget cuts, those services are not available for us, then where would I be able to go?

Look at the community that you caught in the budget from.

Newark is a pretty low income community and cutting that budget doesn't set a good standard.

For, say, a county community college president.

Steven Rose says he'll likely have to reduce programs that help students who've suffered learning loss from COVID avoid repeating classes that they've failed.

I don't want them to take it again.

We do a thing for three weeks after a course where we give them a second chance and we hire some tutors and we try to get them through.

We don't charge them.

These are the types of things that are going to suffer because of this.

A lot of people are depending on the resources here to get through school.

So I think it would be a bad impact on students if we lost our funding.

These presidents point out this budget is still just a proposal and they do plan to sit down with their legislators and try to claw back any amount of this funding that they can.

In Newark, I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight news.