Tuition to Increase at State and Community Colleges [POLL]
Tell us how you feel about the increase in our poll.
The Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education on Thursday approved tuition increases for the four CT state colleges (Southern, Central, Western and Eastern), and 12 of its 13 community colleges (Charter Oak State College considers tuition and fees in June.)
In a news release, Lewis Robinson said the increases were modest and will "enable enable additional funds to funnel back to the campuses to hire much-needed faculty and essential student support staff."
"We're mindful that in this economy, any amount of increase in tuition and fees can be difficult for students and their families, which is why we took every step to keep them as low as possible," he said.
The tuition and fee increases include the following:
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In-State Commuter |
In-State Residential |
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Connecticut State Universities (Undergraduate) |
3.8 percent increase, or $315 more, to $8,556 on average |
3.7 percent or $676 (students currently pay anywhere from roughly $4,500 per year to about $6,000 per year |
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Connecticut Community Colleges |
3.1 percent increase, or $108 more, to $3,598 on average |
N/A |
"With this modest increase in tuition and fees — in addition to continued belt-tightening at the central office and across campuses —we're confident that we can further meet the needs of our ConnSCU students, and invest in their continued success," Interim Board of Regents President Robert A. Kennedy said in the news release.
The announcement comes on the heels of the University of Connecticut announcing tuition increases. That means for in-state undergraduats, tuition and fees will go to $11,290 in the fall, which is $620 more than the current $10,670. By the year 2016, the charge will be $2,676 more than this year, or $13,346, according to the Hartford Courant.
Here at Patch, we want to know how you feel about the tution increases. Please tell us in our poll and our comments field.
Ed Rowland
7:04 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
I know many people that use the community colleges as well as the university colleges in Ct.Tough times for families who have young people in college as well as the working people that are trying to continue and upgrade skills to stay competitive in the stagnant job market.
Craig Zac
7:19 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
I cant understand (well not really, I can but it still amazes me) in times like these with so many folks out of work, companies closing up or moving or just downsizing, and those of us who do have jobs are trying to save everywhere we can incase tomorrow we dont have jobs anymore, why places like this increase their costs? I mean, I get it, they arent getting the business they used to and making the profit they used to but.... what makes them think that the folks who actually can still afford to buy or pay for something, are still going to when the prices keep going up? it begins to get a bit rediculas... And it goesnot for the small businesses, but the cost of supplies, shipping, taxes and everything... the plain cost of doing business goes up.. but it all trickles down to the consumer. We take it the hardest.Maybe if everyone actually lowered their rates / prices some, theyd get more business, sure you may not be making the profits your used to bt youd still be making enough to live and sooner or later the economy may start back up again. Just a thought.
Ed Rowland
7:31 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
Craig, What you say is interesting.Sadly as theory would have it the fixed costs remain the same such as insurance and upkeep of buildings etc.And you are right when you say the consumer takes it on the chin everytime.If people not only lowered rates and maybe lowered their personal standard of living just a little it might keep things in line and maybe spark the economy a bit.Many years ago I worked in a large lumber yard across the dam.We always worked 50-60 hrs. a week.Nice living.When we had a little down turn in the late 80's many of us felt it was in the best interest of the company to cut the work week back to a 4 or 5 day week.And we all worked less hours so that more people could work and at least get 40 hours or close to it.Workers worked with the company to keep as many working as possible.We were a union shop but at least most kept their jobs.
Bill Hillman
11:07 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
Why are these "modest" increases more than the increase in cost of living? 3.8% is a lot, it should be capped at no more than a reasonable index. 2% might be reasonable, Top administrator's salaries flat, and the State schools and UCONN need to start sharing IT infrastructure and selected parts of administration. a 3.8% increase shows failure to contain costs.
MyGoodPeople
9:45 am on Saturday, January 21, 2012
Excellent and true points Bill. The salaries and bonuses of the adminstrative portion of our education system is out of control. Here are just two examples:
http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-jeff-hathaway-0820-20110819,0,2274157.story
and
http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-uconn-athletic-director-0822-20110821,0,4663208.story
I am sure they are both good at what they do. But come on this is crazy stupid money and we are responsible for paying it. What is the answer? How do we control such senseless spending?
QWERTY
11:47 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
How else is this state going to pay for illegal's children to go to college at a significantly reduced rate? Let the hard working legal citizens pay for it....
Jimmy Pursey
1:30 pm on Friday, January 20, 2012
You mean, children born in the United States? Or as I like to call 'em, "citizens"?
The state can pay for it with the taxes day laborers pay and the proceeds from the scratch off tickets I always see them buying.
Jenna
11:56 pm on Friday, January 20, 2012
No he means illegal's children. The illegal aliens who come to the u.s with their kids who have no documentation and can't prove that they are citizens. The ones who are here illegaly, they also get a significant reduction in costs for college. How about instead of giving illegals a break you give the hard working US citizen a break? The college student who is trying to take classes full time while busting their @$$ working to pay their bills at the same time. I would love a reduction in tuition! I would love to not have $30,000 worth of debt that I need to pay off when I graduate, because I can't save any money because what little money I do have now if paying off my other bills. But that's ok keep on giving the illegal aliens a break, they deserve it with all the hard work they did to become a U.S. citizen, and all the taxes they've paid since they were 16!
Jimmy Pursey
1:12 pm on Monday, January 23, 2012
I hate to break this to you, Jenna...but illegals pay taxes. About two thirds of them do...it's common among those who are seeking citizenship. In fact, there are many people who believe they are keeping Social Security afloat...being as that they are paying taxes mainly for services they cannot access.
"While many Americans believe illegal immigrants don't pay taxes, billions of dollars deducted from paychecks issued to undocumented workers flow to the Social Security Administration (SSA) every year. Those workers almost certainly will never see that money again."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017113852_immigtaxes29.html
"The tax system collects its due, even from a class of workers with little likelihood of claiming a refund and no hope of drawing a Social Security check.
Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2008-04-10-immigrantstaxes_N.htm
g
11:47 am on Friday, January 20, 2012
State run higher education should be low cost, and use modest resources. Prior to the income tax, WestConn was a much smaller, less gold plated institution. Now it's a university (instead of a college) and it's been on a decades long spending spree. Just slowing down spending would help keep costs in check.
Jenna
11:59 pm on Friday, January 20, 2012
But they need a new Arts and Visual center oh so bad! They must increase the tuition, to make a new building and move the student parking lot even farther away away from the building.
Allison Egan O'Leary
3:12 pm on Friday, January 20, 2012
While tuition and fees continue to rise and enrollment has steadily increased since 2008, community colleges are operating at a 5% reduction of their 2008 budget. In one sense, this has been an exercise in frugality and an opportunity to refocus spending in the best interest of the students. However, balancing the imbalanced budget of the state on the backs of community college students is simply unjust.
g
11:15 am on Saturday, January 21, 2012
I went looking to see how bad the cuts have been. Our state seems to be reporting increases - http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/budget/2012_2013_biennial_budget/education.pdf . Is the state university system being cut, or is it's rate of increase in spending being cut? The budget summary on pdf page 35 indicates a year over year increase for many years.
Allison Egan O'Leary
12:06 pm on Saturday, January 21, 2012
G, the budget is tricky and I don't pretend to know all the loop holes, but it seems that allocated budget has increased from year to year and then the colleges have been asked to "give back" portions of their budget annually to help defray the consistent inadequacy of the state budget. If you take inflation into account, the numbers become negative. In the last ten years, tuition has had annual increases from 2.6% - 14.2 (http://articles.courant.com/2012-01-19/news/hc-regents-tuition-0120-20120119_1_tuition-hike-larger-tuition-state-universities). Community colleges have experienced the highest increase in enrollment when compared with state schools and UConn, which has it's own implications. Here is a good report to take a look at for more dimensions to the spending trends: www.ctdhe.org/info/pdfs/2011/2011SystemTrends.pdf
g
1:41 pm on Saturday, January 21, 2012
If you look at the chart on pdf page 7 of your 2nd link. You'll see appropriation for state higher education has been up just about every year. In all but one year since 1993 appropriations by our legislature for higher education has gone up.
The pdf report uses an inflation index it likes and picks a time frame it likes. Meaning the authors don't consider general inflation (aka CPI), or inflation we experience in daily life. Instead it uses a special "Higher Education Price Index" referred to in the report as HEPI. The HEPI index is not a government inflation index, it's a private organizations inflation index. In other words, it's the opinion of a group of people who want more funding for higher education.
The HEPI index in aggregate seems to show higher inflation than the CPI. Thus every dollar the state gives to higher education, after being processed through the magic of HEPI is worth less than half a buck.
Even after the HEPI magic, we have spending increases year to year from our legislature. Those spending increases are trivial compared to actual spending increases. HEPI spending is up 61% since the start of the graph in the report, more since 1993 (another arbitrary point, but within the scope of the arbitrary graph).
My cursory review leads me to believe the state university system is spending a lot more cash than it used to, but is increasingly sucking cash from tuition, supplemented by smaller increases provided by our legislature.
g
3:00 pm on Monday, January 23, 2012
Allison Jones,
I agree. Tuition increases like this are contrary to the mission of state higher education. It isn't like funding has been sparse. The folks managing the schools must learn to be a bit more frugal imo or at least cautious in what they spend.
Frank Morresi
1:50 am on Saturday, January 21, 2012
As a Part Time student at WestConn, most classes have 30-40 students in them, the counseling offered is poor or inaccurate, the adjunct Professors due most of the work. The difference between Westconn and a private university is an embarrassment, I don't know if all State universities are run like this, but I hope they aren't.
Steven DeVaux
10:44 am on Saturday, January 21, 2012
People have a choice. If they don't want to go, they shouldn't. If they can't afford to, they can't. They should find some that they can afford like the community colleges. The state should not be subsidizing people. People can borrow the money and pay it back. Let them. Eliminate all subsidies and all tuition to be competetive. Who knows? Maybe it will go down!