For subscribers: As fiscal problems mount for Maricopa Community Colleges, officials consider budget cuts and tuition hikes
The Maricopa County Community Colleges District is teetering on the edge of a fiscal cliff as enrollment continues to drop.
The governing board will need to pass a budget in the coming months, which is expected to have cuts but no tuition increases. Tuition hikes could come in future years to help balance the budget, according to a plan recommended by district staff. Another board member expressed less confidence in the path forward and Maricopa's position as a business.
Interim CFO Kim Granio said staff are collecting information about tuition to demonstrate the board can raise tuition to benefit Maricopa and also not “decimate our students.” “At the end of the day, we’re going to find ourselves backed in a corner where we’ve got to make a decision. What’s it going to be? Can we lay off 1,000 employees? Yeah, but is that what we want to do? No. That’s not going to solve our problem, that’s just going to make us really ineffective in being able to serve the needs of our community.”
That would mean a big shift from recent trends of decreasing student counts, which plummeted during the pandemic but already was largely on a downward slope for the decade prior. “Three years ago, no one would have anticipated 20% enrollment decline over a two-year period, and so we’ve had to make adjustments to what we predicted back then,” he said.
Sullivan said it’s important the board consider the budget forecasts alongside a strategic plan and trends at the district and nationally. Community college enrollment typically increases during economic downturns, as people return to upskill and get new credentials. But that didn’t happen during COVID-19, with community colleges nationally seeing significant enrollment declines during the pandemic. “When inflation goes up 5 to 6% the way that it did last year … we’re paying the same electric bills, the same water bills, we’re putting gas in our fleet of cars to drive around the colleges,” he said.
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