At the September meeting of the Piedmont Virginia Community College board, PVCC President Frank Friedman told board members that the school’s budget was slated for a $900,000 cut. An infusion of $500,000 in federal stimulus money helped to soften the blow to the college’s $18.9 million budget for the current academic year. Now, according to Friedman, PVCC’s finances have improved over earlier estimates.
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PVCC President Frank Friedman says that more than half of the community college’s budget for the 2010-2011 school year will come from student tuition. |
“Although it was very much a doom-and-gloom kind of view of the budget as we talked last year, it has turned out in a more positive vein primarily because of the increase in enrollment and an increase in tuition,” said Friedman.
This fall, in-state students at PVCC paid about $101 per credit hour, compared to $81.65 in 2008. The rise in tuition costs accompanies a steady increase in the number of students: Enrollment has grown roughly 30 percent in the last five years, with a projected total student population of 5,600 for this fall—an increase of about 6 percent, or a couple of hundred students, from last year.
“For the first time in our history, this year, we will collect more money in student tuition than we will state support,” said Friedman. “We will get 54 percent of our budget from student tuition. That is quite a change from where we were a decade ago.”
According to data for the entire Virginia Community College System, state allocations per full-time student have steadily decreased in the last five years. For the 2006-2007 academic year, the state paid $4,395 per student. For the 2009-2010 year, that number shrank to $3,014. The projected allocation for 2011-2012 is less than $2,500.
In comparison, at UVA the numbers look a bit different. Of UVA’s approved $2.4 billion budget, for instance, 42.9 percent comes from revenue generated by patients of UVA Health Systems, while 17.6 percent comes from tuition and fees. Another 13.6 percent comes from sponsored programs, and 6.3 percent comes from the state.
During the last year, PVCC did not add any full-time staff or faculty positions. However, PVCC has hired nine new faculty members for the fall, in areas ranging from psychology and mathematics to business management and nursing.
“You can only do that so long and it’s going to stretch the resources of the college tremendously,” says Friedman. “The infusion of tuition dollars would give us the ability to finally, for the first time in a long time, expand some staffing in some key areas.”
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