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Community college tuition increase sought
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Students walk around Mesa Community College campus.
Tribune File
Like their peers across higher education, students at the Maricopa County Community College District will likely pay more for their classes next school year.
Administrators are proposing to increase the price per credit hour at the district's 10 colleges by $5, or 7 percent. For students taking 15 credit hours a semester, their tuition bill would jump by $150, to $2,280 for the full school year.
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The proposal goes to the district's governing board for a preliminary review Feb. 24 and will be up for approval in late March.
If approved, Debra Thompson, the district's vice chancellor for business services, said the tuition increase will generate about $11 million for the colleges.
"As we look to next year, the tuition increase might help us absorb future cuts that we think may happen, but also to fund some of the needs that we've identified through our budget process," Thompson said.
Lawmakers cut $4.3 million from the district's funding this fiscal year, with additional cuts expected in the coming months, as the state grapples with billion-dollar deficits.
Some campuses, like Chandler-Gilbert Community College, have consistently grown by several hundred students each year. Those colleges require additional instructors to serve the additional students, Thompson said.
Enrollment across the district increased modestly in the fall after steep drops the previous two school years. To date, much of the increase has come from traditional students, those who just graduated from high school, as the number of older students going back to college has shrunk.
However, the district expects that to change during the next two years as the economy continues to struggle, shedding thousands more jobs.
"We are the largest provider of higher education in the state," said Barry Vaughan, a Mesa Community College philosophy professor and president of the faculty association. "And with the large number of people that are losing their jobs in Arizona, they're going to be coming back to school."
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