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Programs designed to help institutions and students are on the chopping block.
Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposal to hack funding in half for state-owned and state-related colleges and universities may be grabbing the bulk of attention in the world of higher education, but community colleges, private institutions and The Commonwealth Medical College all face big budgetary hits from the education ax.
The medical college faces a loss of $4 million at a time of high startup costs and rapid enrollment increase. Luzerne County Community College would lose a bit more than $1.2 million. Even Luzerne County’s privately funded schools – Wilkes and Misericordia universities, and King’s College – will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in “Institutional Assistance Grants” or IAGs.
But the loss doesn’t stop there. Corbett has proposed a cut in grants given to students through the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance program, a needs-based grant that would have the maximum annual award drop from $3,541 to $3,056. And Corbett wants to zero out a little-known program that gives $3,000 annually for three years to high-achieving state residents majoring in key science and technology fields.
Corbett also completely cut funding for a dual enrollment program that let hundreds of local high school students take college classes.
Here’s a quick rundown of the cuts at local colleges.
• The Commonwealth Medical College – A cut of $4 million in direct aid.
• Luzerne County Community College – A cut of about $1.2 million in direct aid, almost 3 percent of the budget; PHEAA cuts that, based on this year’s numbers, would impact 1,437 students – 14 percent of total enrollment; loss of dual enrollment money that helped 417 area high school students attend 603 college classes this year.
• King’s College – A cut in the amount students receive through PHEAA that, based on this year’s numbers, would affect $2.2 million paid to 813 students, 574 of whom receive the maximum amount; a per-pupil reduction of IAG money – paid per student receiving PHEAA grants – from $720 to about $333, roughly totaling more than $300,000; a loss of NETS grants helping 25 students, and loss of dual enrollment money that helped about 100 high school students per semester.
• Misericordia University – Roughly a $230,000 loss in IAG money that totaled $575,484 this year; cuts in PHEAA grants that, this year, gave more than $2 million to 734 students; elimination of NETS money that helped eight students this year, and elimination of dual enrollment money that served 14 students during each semester this year.
• Wilkes University – Loss of about half of $55,378 in IAG money; cuts in PHEAA grants that serve 824 students this year, a bit more than one-third the undergraduate enrollment; loss of dual enrollment money that served 14 students this year.
Medical College President and Dean Dr. Robert D’Alessandri noted the school faced the same threat in 2009 when then-Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a $5 million cut in state funding. The school convinced enough legislators of the value of the investment, and the cuts were never made.
“We’re very hopeful,” D’Alessandri said. “We think this is a new governor who has not had the exposure to TCMC and to the importance of TCMC to the region’s health care and economy.”
The school is small but growing rapidly as planned, from 170 students this year to almost 300 next year, D’Alessandri said, and it is producing doctors for the region and the state at a time when the need is about to mushroom as baby boomers hit retirement age. He promised that any tuition increase will be modest even if the proposed cuts happen. “We are not going to take this out on students.”
LCCC President Tom Leary said college officials are “going to have to sit down and discuss everything about the impact of this, and how we allocate our resources,” but added that tuition was not raised this year and doing so again in the face of any cuts “is a last resort.”
Misericordia President Michael MacDowell said the school “is working very hard to increase our scholarship money available,” and if the PHEAA cuts occur, those efforts will have to be increased. “We’ve made a strategic decision to keep our tuition lower than any four-year, private institution in the area,” he said.
Loss of the IAG money, introduced as a way to help level the playing field between private and state institutions, would be another matter. “There is no way we could recoup that,” MacDowell said. Alumni and community members donate toward needs-based scholarships, “but you can’t ask these people to give to the general fund.”
King’s Director of Financial Aid Donna Cerza said the IAG loss indirectly impacts student aid because it is used to administer the PHEAA program at the school. The cost of administering the program won’t go down, but the college will have to cover those costs with money that possibly could have gone toward financial aid.
But it was the little-known NETS program that Cerza saw as a small but significant loss. Eligible science and technology majors get the $3,000 a year from sophomore through senior year if they maintain a 3.0 grade-point average, and many of them likely planned to have the money next year.
If Corbett’s cuts are enacted, it would be “like breaking a promise,” she said.