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NCCC budget: Rice quizzes leaders over tuition hike

MALONE – Franklin County Legislator Barbara Rice put North Country Community College officials in the hot seat Thursday over their plan to slash the college’s budget and raise tuition and fees for students.

Rice, whose mother Gail Rogers Rice is a former president of the college, and other legislators questioned whether the tuition and fee hikes could worsen North Country’s enrollment drop and push prospective students to look at other, less expensive community colleges in the region.

North Country President Steve Tyrell countered that the college is still competitive and noted that many students get aid that will cover the increase in tuition. He also said the college is working to diversify and grow its enrollment through new degree programs, online courses and targeting non-traditional students.

Exacerbate the problem?

The college plans to cut spending by nearly $900,000 and expects $700,000 less in revenue next year. That’s because its 2016-17 budget is based on a 14.2 percent drop in enrollment, from 1,160 full-time-equivalent students this past year to 900 starting this fall.

To help offset the lost revenue, tuition would increase $175 to $4,600 per year for in-state students while out-of-state students would pay $10,850, an increase of $275. The college has also created some new fees and increased others.

The state increased its per-FTE contribution to community colleges this year, but Tyrell said it’s still well below the 40 percent the state is supposed to contribute to each community college’s budget.

“To this day across the state we are maybe 31 percent,” he said.

Legislator Carl Sherwin, D-Malone, asked if the increase in tuition is “further going to exacerbate the problem of dropping enrollment.”

“We still sit in the middle of the pack,” Tyrell said. “When you add tuition and fees together, we’re still competitive. Also, a very large majority of our students get aid, where they get covered for most of the bill.

“I don’t think our increase in tuition and fees in itself has hurt us. We’re always concerned about raising our prices, but until there’s a way that the other statutory obligations are being met, we have to do what we’re doing.”

Balancing act

Rice noted that this is the third straight year the college has raised tuition, which adds up to a 12 percent increase.

“I did a cursory look at a couple community colleges I think you’re probably most competitive with, and you’re definitely higher in (in-state) tuition than all of them,” she said. “Clinton Community College, their tuition is $4,300. (SUNY) Adirondack is less. Fulton-Montgomery is less. Hudson Valley is less.

“It’s a very fine balance to raise prices. That’s a slippery slope, and it’s a short-term fix. Moving ahead, what is the plan in terms of increasing enrollment, and are you going to continue to increase tuition and fees?”

Tyrell said the college hopes to attract new students by diversifying its programs. This year it will offer new associate degrees in environmental studies and child and family services along with its first, full online program in liberal arts and sciences.

Graduating high school students have traditionally been the college’s biggest target for new admissions, but high school enrollments have dropped across the North Country, Tyrell noted.

“We need to attract more non-traditional students,” he said. “They are looking to credential up in whatever passion they want to pursue with their career, and being able to do it online versus having to go into a traditional class setting in the daytime. So this is where we’re growing, and we’re excited about it, and the faculty are looking at some other programs we’d like to move online in the future.”

North Country has also been picked for a pilot program that provides Pell grants to high school students who take college credit classes, and the college was recently awarded a three-year grant to re-start education programs for inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ray Brook.

Tuition, fees

As the discussion continued, Rice again asked Tyrell if the college plans to increase tuition in the future.

“I think every year we start from scratch, and we look at how do we best package the budget,” he said.

“I get that,” Rice interrupted, “but in terms of a strategic plan, you don’t start from scratch every year. You have to have some idea of where you’re heading. You’ve got some new programs, and that’s great. How else are you going to remain competitive? Raising tuition and fees every year, I think it could be argued that makes you less competitive.”

Tyrell said the college is about to launch a new strategic planning process to address those issues. He noted that the college’s “peers” may not have raised tuition at the same pace North Country has, but they’ve raised their fees much faster.

“When you calculate tuition and fees together, you can see we are far more competitive than just looking at tuition,” Tyrell said. “I guess it’s a philosophical point about whether or not you should be honest and put (the increase) in tuition, or you should hide it in fees. I think we’re being more transparent by putting it in tuition.”

But the college is also raising fees, Rice noted.

“The revenue we will collect in our fee schedule is not, in our minds, significant,” Tyrell responded, “but it is collecting for the costs for teaching some of those classes that we weren’t collecting before.”

Marketing, Welcome Center

Legislator Don Dabiew, D-Bombay, said the county gave the college $50,000 several years ago to be used for marketing.

“You were going to bring in more people from other areas, and it looks like your numbers are dropping, so that marketing money didn’t work?” Dabiew asked.

“We used it to redo all our marketing materials,” Tyrell responded, “and I think if we hadn’t done it, we might not be where we are. We have a better product out the door that we’re selling to the region, and I think the marketing dollars have served us well in that regard.”

Dabiew and Rice also quizzed Tyrell on the college’s planned Welcome Center in Saranac Lake. In 2013, the North Country Community College Foundation paid village Mayor Clyde Rabideau’s construction company $420,000 for two properties off of Lake Flower Avenue where a college Welcome Center would be built, but the project has yet to move forward.

“We’re still having conversations internally with the campus community about the next steps about that property,” Tyrell said. “Nothing that I could share today.”

Stigma

Legislator Gordon Crossman, D-Malone, said the college remains a “very good bargain” for graduating high school students.

“Do you think that message is really getting across to the parents, that they can save a lot of money?” he asked Tyrell.

Tyrell said he thinks many parents don’t appreciate the value of a community college.

“I still think there’s a stigma attached to community colleges in the region and across the country that this is not the rigor of a four-year experience,” he said. “The same rigor you’re getting at a baccalaureate institution you’re getting at a community college across the state, but people still don’t understand that. We have to keep pounding on that message to parents and students.”

Hearing set

The county legislature will hold a public hearing on the college’s 2016-17 budget at 11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 18 in the legislative offices at the Franklin County Courthouse in Malone.

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