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Two-tier tuition makes community-college debut

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Differential tuition is on the rise around the country. A study by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute turned up 143 public institutions that charge higher fees to students in some fields, mostly business, engineering and nursing, and most typically in doctoral schools.  (At the University of Maine, for example, students last year paid $75 extra for each engineering course.)

But in community colleges? That was unheard of — until last month. Santa Monica College announced plans to charge a much higher fee for courses in high demand (English and math), from which students would otherwise be turned away. This novel strategy results in large part from state budget cuts that have forced elimination of more than 1,000 class sections at the college since 2008, according to the LA Times. The funding reduction this one school this year was about $11 million, nearly half  of Vermont’s annual appropriation for  its entire state college system.

Everything about this Santa Monica College is on a scale almost unimaginably bigger than anything in Vermont. Students number 34,000, more than three times the undergraduate enrollment at UVM.

But in one respect,  Santa Monica still doesn’t top Vermont.

Santa Monica’s standard fee for credit hour, now $36, will rise to $46 this summer and fall — still way below what anyone pays here. The new second-tier fee that’s getting all the attention — and generating fears that low-income students will be driven away —will be $180.

That compares to an in-state credit-hour fee of $214 at  Community College of Vermont. Out-of-state students pay $428. True, state aid to higher education has not fallen as dramatically in Vermont as in California, but it was much lower to begin with.

Given that Santa Monica’s new fee structure is partly a response to over-subscribed courses, we asked if CCV has the same problem. Does CCV have excess demand for some courses?

Yes, according to CCV spokeswoman Robin Dutcher, who said some classes fill up early in the registration period:

“We plan our course offerings according to the demand we saw in previous semesters, so we are usually able to anticipate students’ needs accurately.  Occasionally, we will add sections to accommodate demand. Students can also join wait lists and get into their preferred class if a spot opens up.”

Differential tuition has not been considered at CCV, Dutcher said.


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