Bucks’ Board of Trustees
approved a tuition increase of
$10 per credit effective in the
fall semester of 2011 at a special
meeting on Friday, March
31.
With a single item on the
agenda, James Dancy, Jr., chair
of the Finance Committee,
introduced a motion to the
board to approve per-credit
increases of $6 for tuition and
$4 for technology fees. Prior
to the unanimous vote to
approve the increase, remarks
were offered by J. Peter
Dominick, board chairman,
President Linksz and board
member Garney Morris.
Dominick said the board has
traditionally taken any tuition
increases “very personal and
very seriously,” recognizing
the personal daily struggles of
all. “Our main mission here is
to keep education and tuition
affordable and accessible to
anyone who chooses to attend
this institution, and we take
that commitment extremely
seriously.”
The special meeting was held
after the trustees postponed a
decision at the prior meeting
because there were still discussions
at the state level relative
to potential funding cuts to the
community colleges. State
allocations represent about one
third of the overall $85 million
budget.
In the interim, Dominick
said, the trustees and administration
wrestled with the budget
in an attempt to fill the anticipated
gap, looking at both rev-
enues and expenditures. With
a goal to improve efficiency
without sacrificing the quality
that Bucks is known for, the
board asked Linksz and his
administrative team to review
the budget as many as four
times in some cases.
The $10 per credit increase
exceeds those of the past couple
of years by $3, and the
expected total increase for a
full-time student equates to
about $240 per year over what
a student paid this year.
Placing this year’s increase
in perspective, Dr. Linksz, said
“The thing to remember is that
the state cuts to the community
college, which include the nonfunding
of the stimulus money
from the federal government
for the last two years by
itself.essentially requires
about an $8 tuition increase
just to close that one single
gap.”
That doesn’t count any
increases in health care, utilities
or insurance costs, nor the
supplies and equipment to
maintain the quality of the
institution. “The value of the
state cut effectively mandated
an increase in tuition,” he said.
The Bucks Board of Trustees
must still build a balanced
budget that will not be finalized
until June. In the meantime,
the $1.93 million cut
from the state has not been
signed by the legislature, so no
one knows, for certain, the outcome.
What is clear, according to
Linksz, is that “The average
amount raised by each $1 in
tuition is $250,000,” so the cut
equates to $7.72 of the $10
tuition hike. When natural
increases like those noted combine
with the state cut, the
actual shortfall is about $5 million.
Even after the tuition
Students respond to tuition hike
increases, nearly half of it will
need to be made up in budget
cost-cutting and reduced
expenditures.
Echoing a brief comment
Morris made just prior to the
vote, Dominick said they had,
“a knockdown, drag out discussion
about this,” which is
one of the reasons the board
required extra time to come to
a decision about a tuition
increase.
In the context of the 14 state
universities, Linksz explained
that, compared to Bucks, the
difference in tuition rates at
institutions like LaSalle, Penn
State, Holy Family and the others
has continued to widen
over the last ten years. If the
bill in Harrisburg passes as it
stands, state institutions could
see a $2,000 per student drop
in funding.
If those schools “like Temple
and Penn State didn’t get any
of that money back from the
commonwealth, they could see
a tuition increase of $2,000,”
he said. That may not actually
happen, but even if it’s half
that, tuition increases at other
institutions could be more than
four times as much as that at
Bucks. In that sense, the $240
increase is an excellent value.
It is from this perspective
that the administration and
board have viewed these
increases. Linksz said, “Our
recommendation to the trustees
was that they select a tuition
and fee amount that is reasonable
in that larger context and
reasonable for our students.”
The staff has committed itself
to work through the rest of the
budget to make the appropriate
adjustments.
Where will other cuts be to
make up the loss? Everything
is under review. After the special
meeting, Linksz said that
the majority of cuts will come
in probably two or three big
areas, but each represents a lot
of smaller areas within it. The
largest portion of the budget,
roughly 80 percent, is personnel.
The majority of cuts
would need to come from this
area in order to have a significant
budgetary impact.
Linksz admitted that there is
potential for layoffs, though he
stopped short of further comment.
Some savings in personnel
will come mainly from
“not filling open positions that
we would have preferred to fill
but will not be filling,” he said.
As a consequence, there will
be a savings in benefits, too.
The total benefit package that a
full-time employee receives is
almost 50 percent of his or her
salary, when one considers
health and dental care, life
insurance, FICA and retirement
contributions.
Another area affected by cuts
will be non-personnel. “As a
practical matter, there are
always things you can defer,”
Linksz explained. An example
could be professional development
training where, he suggested,
the college might have
previously considered sending
10 staff members; now, that
number may be reduced. The
key is to determine what areas
can be deferred that will not
significantly reduce the quality
of programming. Other
options might be closing the
campus to outside groups and
during breaks, as was done this
past winter, to reduce facility
overhead costs.
Budget deficit issues are not
new territory for Linksz. In
1992, his first year at Bucks, he
arrived with the budget already
in deficit. College trustees
acted in advance of his tenure
and subsequent to his arrival
for the next couple of years to
bring the deficit under control.
Regrettably, he said, he has
faced deficits at prior colleges
where he had worked, as well.
“So,” he continued, “it’s not
unknown in higher education
that you go through these
cycles. With the goodwill on
the part of all and some understanding
of shared sacrifice,
you usually get through these
periods.” He did note that the
general consensus among the
14 community college presidents
is that this particular
recovery is complicated, and
may be quite slow.
When asked what message
he’d have for students regarding
the tuition increase, Linksz
said that, since every student is
a taxpayer and a voter, “We
encourage them to stay
involved with matters that
affect their lives; not just their
college lives, but also their
lives as citizens, because what
we’re experiencing is essentially
bigger than the college.”
It’s important, too, that students
understand the larger
context, the value that Bucks
brings proportionally relative
to other local institutions.
“Bucks,” he concludes, “continues
to be the best education
and best value, really, that any
citizen in this county can get.”
Dominick added his personal
perspective, saying, “It was
clearly one of the most difficult
decisions that I was a part of
here.” Given the expected
tuition increases elsewhere, he
said, they would encourage
everyone to take their first year
or two at Bucks. Dominick
concluded, “I’ll put this school
up against anybody in terms of
its quality.”