Eastern Gateway Community College raises tuition

It will cost Eastern Gateway Community College students $6 more per credit hour beginning this fall.

College trustees voted this week to increase tuition, citing revenue shortfalls for the college’s fiscal year 2012 budget.

The increase will cost a full-time student taking 30 hours total in fall and spring an additional $180 per year. The General Assembly set the maximum increase for community colleges at $200 per year.

Effective fall semester 2011, the tuition rates per hour will be $99 for Jefferson County, $105 for in-state, including students attending at the Valley Center in Youngstown and the Warren facility; $105 for reciprocity counties in West Virginia’s northern panhandle, $133 for out-of-state; and $165 for foreign students.

Before the increase, Mahoning Valley students were paying $99 per credit hour.

The Youngstown City Schools Early College program tuition rate also will increase by $6 to $102 per credit hour. The Early College program is transitioning from Youngstown State University to EGCC. It allows students to earn college credit while still enrolled in high school.

EGCC officials and trustees developed a budget to cover a shortfall of $743,402, which includes state student subsidy that dropped $473,402 and Jefferson County levy funds that dropped $270,000.

“We had to do some creative things and look at a lot of different things to balance the budget,” said Ann Koon, an EGCC spokeswoman. “It’s tough. We were not only hit by the loss of the state subsidy but the levy funds.”

College officials had anticipated a phase out of levy funds through 2018 for a $65,000 reduction per year, Koon said. Instead, all of that money was eliminated from the college’s budget for fiscal year 2012.

“It’s sort of a double whammy,” she said.