Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 9, 1992 TAG: 9201090520
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
COLLEGE FEE EFFECTS FEARED
Offsetting reduced funding for higher education with a tuition increase worries some community college officials, who fear that a large segment of students served by the schools would be shut out, unable to pay the higher fees."What that does is force students who are marginally able to afford college in a direction where they are not able to take classes," said Ed Barnes, president of New River Community College.
"We serve many students who are economically disadvantaged. One has to worry about impact on students' ability to pay."
Gov. Douglas Wilder's proposed $28 billion state budget would give state colleges and universities the authority to increase tuition up to 24 percent over two years. The tuition rate for the state's 23 community college system is $35 per credit hour.
Chancellor Arnold Oliver, head of the state's 23-school community college system, said Wednesday that a tuition increase is an obvious consideration. The size of an increase, however, would require a "full analysis," he said.
"What we're going to see will be an attempt to offset the impact of any tuition increase with additional money being placed in the state discretionary aid program," Oliver said.
But supplementing dwindling higher-education funding by increasing tuition, particularly that of community colleges, could be a troubling necessity.
"Either strategy is painful," Barnes said. "My heart goes out to those students. My heart breaks for those kinds of people."
Along with other state agencies, the community college system has been told to develop a contingency plan for cutting an additional 3 percent - or $5.4 million in the system's case - from its budget for the current fiscal year.
At Virginia Western Community College that meant trimming $300,000 from the current year's $12 million spending plan. New River Community College in Dublin has withheld cuts until it gets a better handle on actual reductions, Barnes said.
Virginia Western has been forced to sacrifice professional development for faculty, future equipment purchases, library books and miscellaneous supplies such as chemistry lab equipment.
"We have nothing left to cut as I can see it now," Robert Harrell, dean of management services for Virginia Western, said Wednesday.
A tuition increase would benefit the school greatly, Harrell said.
"It does mean our students would pay more for an individual education, but in turn it would offset funding we will not have," he said.
Classes opened Wednesday at Virginia Western with an estimated enrollment of 6,500, comparable in size to last year's spring semester enrollment.
But that number could have been greater had the school not been forced to turn away students because of budget constraints.
"We're not adding any additional courses, even if we have students who want to take them," Harrell said. "Students have not been able to get all of the classes they wanted to have. If they wanted five classes, they could only get two or three and in some cases, only one."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY