Vermont State College Chancellor Tim Donovan offered the following remarks following a decision by the Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees Thursday night to raise tuitions of the state colleges by 4 percent each of the next two years. The state colleges are comprised of Castleton State College, Community College of Vermont, Johnson State College, Lyndon State College and Vermont Technical College.
Chancellor Donovan’s statement:
"This evening, the Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees approved tuition rates for next two academic years. The rates reflect a four percent increase in each of the two successive years, and apply through the end of FY2014. This increase applies to instate, undergraduate students at all five of the colleges. The Board vote was 9-4 and followed an engaged discussion.
Up until the winter of 2011, the Board considered tuition rates in early May. Last year, the Board of Trustees agreed to a proposal to set tuition earlier in the year for two reasons.
First, due to a long history of modest state support for the operations of these public institutions, tuition represents more than 80% of the colleges’ revenue. Knowing tuition rates will enable the colleges to be more deliberate and strategic in developing budgets for review by the Board’s Finance and Facilities committee in May and approval in June.
Second, by setting tuition rates early, colleges can provide more timely and accurate financial aid packages that will benefit prospective students and their families in making their college decisions. Last year demonstrated that this was a far more logical approach. By holding the vote a full year in advance, it was the opinion of the presidents and the board that these advantages will be augmented.
A week ago, the Board’s Finance and Facilities committee held a thoughtful discussion of the proposal. The chancellor and the presidents of the five colleges took the position that the increase and the timing strikes a reasonable and responsible balance between effective planning, covering existing costs and beginning to address the long-term obligations of the system.
This is always a challenging and important decision for the board. It is a decision that demands consideration of the key elements of the Vermont State College’s mission:
‘For the benefit of Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges provide affordable, high quality, student-centered, and accessible education, fully integrating professional, liberal, and career study.’
In the context of the VSC mission, levels of public subsidy that are among the lowest in the nation, and the state’s challenges, our tuition is, at the same moment, both too high and too low. This increase is modest relative to public institutions around the nation, where the average increases of tuition more than double this proposal. However, that won’t reassure the students most affected by the increase. Nor would they benefit from the impact on programming that a lower rate of increase would have had. In the end, as is annually the case, there were board members who would have preferred higher and board members who would have preferred lower. We are fortunate to be overseen by a board whose discussions are characterized by healthy discourse, consensus and compromise. Our trustees recognized the cuts and impact on quality that a lower rate of increase would have forced on the colleges, and they also recognized that the system must begin addressing its long-term post-retirement health-care obligations. The colleges long ago transitioned to a defined contribution retirement plan for its employees.
This vote precedes the adoption of a state budget and appropriation for the VSC. The fact remains that we never knew that appropriation level with any certainty during prior deliberations. Our financial modeling included the operational funding level proposed by Governor Shumlin. That modeling indicates that, if adopted by the Legislature, the proposed appropriation holds the VSC’s FY2013 funding to slightly below our FY2007 funding and at roughly two-thirds of the appropriation recommended for the University of Vermont.
It is our hope that the Legislature heeds the words of the President in his State of the Union address: ‘States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets.’ It has long been my belief as Chancellor that any increase in state appropriation that exceeded the rate of inflation could be shared between increasing capacity at the colleges and mitigating the impact of tuition on students and families. The students, the trustees, the presidents and I all look forward to that day."
February 2, 2012 Vermont State Colleges