Budget Cuts Lead to Tuition Increase at Tri-County

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 6/3/2002
(By Rebecca Eidson)

PENDLETON --- At its meeting on Monday, June 3, 2002, Tri-County Technical College's Board approved a tuition increase, raising the cost of attending the College from $850 to $996 per semester for full-time students. The increase goes into effect for the fall term.

"No one regrets this increase more than I do," said Dr. Don Garrison, Tri-County's President for more than three decades. "There was simply no other choice. We'll be starting the new fiscal year with nearly a million dollars less in State funding than last year – that equates to a 9.17% reduction."

"We absolutely cannot maintain our programs and services for students when we are facing a budget cut of this magnitude," he said.

Dr. Garrison pointed out that State budget woes are not a new problem. Tri-County Technical College and the State Technical College System as a whole are funded at approximately 50% of their Mission Resource Requirement (MRR), which is the average amount of State funding received by similar institutions in the Southeast.

"The importance of MRR funding really comes to light when you look at it on an FTE (full-time equivalency) basis. Our FTE funding from the State has dropped dramatically in the last three years," Dr. Garrison said. FTE funds are State dollars that each college receives to cover the instructional costs for one student, multiplied by the number of full-time equivalent students enrolled each year. "Our net loss per FTE student over three years is $719.00 per student. That's a total shortfall in State funding of nearly $2.5 million during a three-year period," Dr. Garrison added. "Something's got to give, or we can't cover our costs."

At the same time it is coping with State funding cuts, Tri-County is facing increased enrollment. Preliminary figures indicate that summer term enrollment is 10.6% higher than the same term last year. "On top of that, we anticipate a 15% enrollment increase this fall. We'll have more students to serve, which translates into increased costs for instruction, while at the same time we're coping with dramatically reduced State funding which has continued to drop even in years when there was strong State revenue growth and year-end fund balances," said Dr. Garrison.

He went on to point out that the burden of higher tuition can be lessened if students take advantage of the many financial aid and scholarship opportunities that are available, including the new lottery-funded tuition assistance program that was recently enacted by the General Assembly.

While Dr. Garrison welcomes lottery scholarships, he is concerned about the impact of increased enrollment resulting from the availability of these scholarships.

"We're disappointed that no lottery funds were appropriated for operational costs. We expect more students to attend Tri-County now that lottery scholarships will be available, but we aren't being given any lottery funds for additional instructors or support services," he added. Dr. Garrison pointed out that tuition only covers a portion of the cost of educating students.

"We can't cover our increased costs in the face of a million-dollar State funding cut without increasing our tuition," he said.

Dr. Garrison expects that lottery-funded tuition assistance will translate to approximately one-half tuition scholarships for students. "Applying for federal financial aid is the first step," he stated. "That's the basis on which eligibility is determined. The lottery funding will kick in after all federal dollars are applied."

"The counselors in our Financial Aid office will work with students to be sure they are getting everything they are eligible to receive. Thanks to a very generous community and the support of our College Foundation, we have numbers of scholarships available," Dr. Garrison stated. He added that more than $3.5 million in financial aid and scholarships were distributed to students last year.

"We'll do everything we can to ensure that this tuition increase doesn't prevent anyone from attending our College," Dr. Garrison emphasized. "We hope everyone understands that we had no other choice but to raise tuition in the face of such a serious budget cut."
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