Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Students who attend Northern Maine Community College in the fall won’t be paying any more to take classes than they do now as the state’s seven community colleges will freeze tuition at $84 a credit hour for the coming academic year. For a full-time student taking 30 credit hours over two semesters, annual tuition will remain at $2,520. The freeze is part of a decade-long commitment on the part of Maine Community College System leaders to bring the price of a community college education in Maine in line with the national average.
“Maine has the lowest per capita income and the lowest college attainment rates in New England,” said MCCS President John Fitzsimmons. “Our colleges and board of trustees have made a sustained commitment to make higher education more affordable in Maine. In a tough economy, when students are struggling to enroll or stay in school, that effort has become all the more urgent.”
The community colleges have frozen tuition seven of the last 12 years. By the fall of 2010, annual MCCS tuition and fees will be the lowest in New England.
Fitzsimmons said the 2010-11 tuition freeze was made possible by the recent efforts of the governor and Legislature to restore $1.7 million in funding that had been targeted for cuts. Instead, the restoration of funds to the FY2011 budget, combined with significant belt tightening and cost efficiencies at each of the seven colleges, will enable the institutions to freeze tuition while maintaining current programs and enrollment levels.
NMCC President Timothy Crowley said the tuition freeze was “the right move at the right time.”
“The economy is making it really challenging for people and I think freezing tuition is the right thing to do,” he said. “It will make it more difficult on the campus because we rely on tuition revenues, as well as appropriations, to operate the college, but I think the state of the economy requires that we not change things any more than we absolutely have to so people can afford to go onto school.”
Crowley said the freeze would likely maintain the current enrollment rather than cause an increase.
“Enrollment will pretty much hold the line. We’ve had such a dramatic increase in the last two years that there’s really not a lot of room for growth,” he said. “The room for growth is really in the second year. Generally when you admit a class, you’re going to have a percentage of that group that’s not going to complete their studies, so that’s where the opportunity for growth is.
“I anticipate at the start of the fall that we’ll be very close to capacity in all of our programs,” said Crowley. “Next year’s graduating class will probably be the biggest we’ve ever had. Our numbers are growing and the tuition freeze helps people access higher education and that’s a good thing.”
Although the MCCS has been successful in holding down increases in tuition and fees, the cost of attending one of the state’s seven community colleges remains above the national average.
