Community College Week
March 28, 2005
Kentucky Tuition Up — by a Little
VERSAILLES, Ky. (AP) — The board of Kentucky’s community and technical
colleges has increased tuition rates for next school year by only 6.5 percent,
crediting the modest rise on increased state funding in the recently passed
state budget.
The board of regents of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System
said tuition would cost $98 per credit hour for the 2005-2006 school year. The
cost this year was $92 per credit hour.
“With the additional funding provided in the budget, we were able to set
an affordable tuition rate that allows us to continue our momentum and offer
our students the highest educational value in the Commonwealth,” Cynthia
L. Read, chairwoman of the regents said in a written statement.
KCTCS is expected to receive approximately $13.6 million in additional funding
from the budget.
All regents who attended the meeting approved the new tuition rates, including
the two student regents.
Leading up to the board meeting, KCTCS held 16 hearings across the state to
receive comments from students, faculty and staff about potential tuition increases.
The system runs 16 community and technical colleges at 65 campuses across the
state.
Community College Week
March 28, 2005
House and Senate Juggle Education Reform
Thumbs up for Perkins and thumbs down for the administration’s proposal
to wipe it out. The Senate unanimously approved the Carl D. Perkins Career and
Technical Education Improvement Act of 2005, while the House Education and the
Workforce Committee unanimously approved a similar measure, the Vocational and
Technical Education for the Future Act.
If approved, both measures would last six years, with the House authorizing
$1.307 billion in fiscal 2006 to cover national, state and local spending under
all the bill’s provisions, with no sums specified for the next five years.
The Senate bill does not specify any funding.
The legislation would remove most federal control over standards and spending.
States would set their own standards in consultation with the Department of
Education and would contract with local grantees to set performance goals.
Under both bills, states would have to set separate performance indicators
for secondary and postsecondary education. Experience showed that some of the
indicators for high school didn’t apply to community colleges (such as
getting secondary diplomas). While states would have to develop indicators for
postsecondary students, the measures differ somewhat between the bills.
The House’s proposal stresses “vocational and technical” skills,
staying in school, graduating or transferring to bachelor’s-degree programs,
employment and placement in nontraditional fields. The Senate bill calls for
measuring increased earnings and developing skills aligned with nationally recognized
industry standards.
In order to “streamline and target federal funding,” the House bill
would eliminate the Tech Prep program, combining it with state funding, while
the Senate bill would maintain it.
“History has shown that when you combine funding streams, you lose money
over time,” warned Alisha Dixon Hyslop, assistant director of public policy
for the Association for Career and Technical Education.
Also, the House bill would increase the percentage of state grants that would
go to local programs from 85 percent to 88 percent. Under the bill, states would
lose 60 percent of their administrative money. Current law caps state administrative
expenses at five percent of their allotment but the bill would cut it to two
percent.
The Senate bill, however, wouldn’t cut the share states could keep, and
would give them more flexibility in using their money — allowing states
to pay for data systems, for instance, and removing caps on spending for training
in nontraditional fields.
Only the House bill would prohibit federal control of state activities. The
Senate would require that the Education Department report on “special populations”
and “career clusters” in postsecondary programs when enough data become
available, and require the department to fund a national research center at
a higher-education institution. The Senate bill would also call for states to
involve businesses in their plans, such as by hiring professionals as adjunct
faculty.
Under both bills, states would get a year to comply with the new rules.
Democrats in the House committee are supporting the bill. But ranking member
George Miller, D-Calif., said,“While I will support this bill, I remain
concerned that it fails to address two critical issues: The bill eliminates
the separate authorization for the Tech Prep program and cuts state administrative
funding far below what states need to carry out the new responsibilities that
have been added to the bill.”
The Chonicle of Higher Education
March 29, 2005
New Guidelines Are Intended to Help Public Colleges Avoid Disputes With Their
Private Foundations
Two higher-education professional organizations have jointly created guidelines
that may help stem the growing controversies surrounding the relationships between
public institutions and their affiliated private foundations.
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Association of
Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges released a model "memorandum
of understanding" last week for public institutions to use when trying
to define and structure how they work with their foundations.
Some private foundations that are affiliated with public universities have
recently been the subjects of court and legislative battles across the country.
Although the foundations are private entities, critics believe that their records
should be public because they are raising and managing private donations for
public institutions.
This week in Georgia, for example, lawmakers are debating legislation that
would ensure anonymity to anyone donating money to a public college in the state.
Records of such donations are currently considered public in Georgia. In Kentucky,
a lawsuit by a Louisville newspaper has led to the disclosure of the names of
corporate and foundation donors to the University of Louisville (The Chronicle,
December 15, 2004).
The new guidelines "hopefully will get at the degree of independence or
dependence between foundations and universities, so that when questions arise
about whether state laws apply to foundations, it will become more clear,"
said John Lippincott, president of CASE, on Monday.
The memorandum was created by a committee that sought input from foundation
officials, university administrators, judges, and lawyers. It is supposed to
serve as a model, to be tailored to an institution's specific needs.
Some of the issues covered in the memorandum include ideas for structuring
responsibilities like fund raising, asset management, data and records management,
and the process for ending the relationship.
James L. Lanier, president of the East Carolina University Foundation and chairman
of the committee, likened the memorandum to a prenuptial agreement.
"It is indeed essential that there is a memorandum of understanding when
a university enters into a relationship with an affiliated foundation,"
he said. "The process of creating it is as important as the product --
working out the issues between the two parties will ensure that both are operating
on the same wavelength."
The text of the document, "AGB-CASE Illustrative Memorandum of Understanding
Between a Foundation and Host Institution or System," can be viewed at
the CASE Web site.
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