Staff Writer
BANGOR – The board of trustees of the Maine Community College System voted March 25 to increase tuition at the state’s seven community colleges by $2 a credit hour for the coming academic year, a 2.4 percent increase. A full-time Maine student taking 30 credit hours will see tuition rise by $60, to $2,520 a year. Confronting a potential $3.7 million deficit in 2009-2010 – the result of state budget cuts and increases in operating costs – the board nonetheless sought to hold the tuition increase to a minimum.
“Layoffs and economic uncertainty are causing more Mainers than ever to turn to the community colleges,” said the Honorable Daniel Wathen, board chair and a native of Easton. “Our goal during this difficult time is to keep our programs intact and our tuition affordable so that we can meet the enormous need for our services. That’s an ongoing challenge.”
The tuition increase means that Maine students will pay $84 per credit hour in 2009-2010, up from $82 in 2008-2009. Out-of-state tuition will increase to $168 per credit hour, or $5,040 for a full-time student.
“It’s a modest increase, unfortunately I think it’s necessary,” said Northern Maine Community College President Tim Crowley. “We’ve got to remember that we have hundreds of people at this point in Aroostook County that have been laid off, and they’re trying to access higher education, so increasing the cost is a very difficult thing to do, but critical if we’re going to maintain the quality and the number of programs we have.
“On one hand you hate to see the tuition increase, but I think it’s a modest increase and realistic at this point. The board has been very careful over the years with tuition, and we have kept it very low compared to other places and that’s a good thing, but it puts additional pressure on the campuses in terms of efficiency and keeping our costs down,” he said. “Hopefully it’s not an increase that’s going to prevent somebody from coming to college. The amount of federal Pell money that’s available has increased, so financial aid allocations will go up a little bit and should more than cover this modest increase in tuition.”
The tuition increase – along with federal stimulus dollars and continued belt-tightening at each of the colleges – will enable the MCCS to address the projected 2009-2010 deficit. But the System expects to continue to be challenged by growing student demand. According to MCCS President John Fitzsimmons, the colleges are experiencing record applications for next fall, up 25-35 percent in some instances.
Maine’s seven community colleges serve nearly 15,000 credit-seeking students. Since the System transitioned from technical to community colleges in 2003, the colleges have experienced a 63 percent increase in degree-seeking enrollment, an additional 4,700 students.
