EGCC increases tuition $6 per credit

Staff report

steubenville

Eastern Gateway Community College students will pay $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.

Trustees also approved a lease with the Youngstown school district to house classes on the fourth floor of Choffin Career and Technical Center beginning in January. The school board previously approved the lease.

EGCC will move classes from the Valley Center at ValleyCare’s Northside Medical Center on Gypsy Lane.

Under the agreement, EGCC will pay $274,010 for the initial 1.5-year term, payable in monthly installments of $15,223 for the 20,297 square feet.

If the lease is renewed after that first term, EGCC will pay $202,970 per year in monthly installments of $16,914 for the first one-year renewal and $223,267 per year for the second year. The monthly installments the second year would be $18,606.