o faculty and staff, and finally the community” said Barb Watson, Director of NCC Learning Tree Development Center.

Chancellor McCormick wants to lower tuition increases

By Brian Price

College is expensive and it’s not getting any cheaper. That’s why it’s nice to hear some good news coming from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees, which asked Chancellor James McCormick to give a report on how the budget would be affected if the Board would restrict increases in tuition to two percent for colleges and three percent for the universities.
McCormick was named Chancellor for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system in December 2000 by the Board of Trustees and has been working there ever since. His report was in favor of lowering tuition increases and he stressed fixing the system to make our schools more affordable for everyone. He emphasized to the Board how much college students contribute to our communities when he stated in his speech “By educating our students, our system enhances the productivity of the state’s workforce. And our graduates do not make a one-time addition to the state’s economy; they continue to contribute throughout their working lives.” Economist Paul Anton was asked to review what effect the system had on Minnesota’s economy and he found that our collegiate system has a 3.5 billion dollars a year impact statewide on our economy, with much of that money coming from the improved efficiency of workers who received a degree or training at a Minnesota school. Anton also found that for every dollar spent within the system, the economic compensation totals out to be about ten dollars.
McCormick also spoke of the importance of working with the kids in high schools and middle schools and get them excited about school. He spoke of the impact that this was having on our college systems, out of the 78 percent of students who graduate only 42 percent of those students move on to higher education. This, he insisted, needs to be corrected. The system needs to work together and improve that percentage.
If the Board were to approve the recommendation the state would take a slight hit each year in the budget. To keep the costs lower for college students the state would have to pay approximately 12.4 million a year. This could be helpful to many students across the state, some who have seen increases as high as 15 percent. On a state-by-state report card on higher education Minnesota was given a D for affordability, and pointed that college is becoming harder to afford for lower-income families. This is something that is crippling our system, and with his recommendation, McCormick hopes that he help our students.
While college isn’t getting any cheaper, hopefully we will at least see slower increases. If we continue to increase tuition as we have, college will only be affordable to the very rich, or anyone willing to be up to their eyeballs in debt. Hopefully the Board of Trustees took McCormick’s message of change to heart and will give the students a bit of a break.