State board sets 2013-2014 community college tuition

NEWS RELEASE

RICHMOND — The State Board for Community Colleges established the 2013-2014 in-state tuition and mandatory fees rate at $130 per credit hour at its regular May meeting. Beginning this fall in-state students will pay an additional $5.50 per credit hour, which means the cost of a typical three-hour class will increase by $16.50 and the cost of a full-time load of classes for the year will increase by $165....

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Jeffrey Kraus

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Relations

(804) 592-6767

jkraus@vccs.edu

For Immediate Release
May 16, 2013

Hiring Additional Full-Time Instructors,
Offering More STEM-H* Programs
Drive State Board Tuition Policy for 2013-2014

*Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Health Science

RICHMOND — The State Board for Community Colleges established the 2013-2014 in-state tuition and mandatory fees rate at $130 per credit hour at its regular May meeting. Beginning this fall in-state students will pay an additional $5.50 per credit hour, which means the cost of a typical three-hour class will increase by $16.50 and the cost of a full-time load of classes for the year will increase by $165.

The approved 4.4 percent increase will allow Virginia’s Community Colleges to expand science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and health science (STEM-H) programs. It will increase the percentage of courses taught by full-time faculty from 45 percent to 47.5 percent – a level not seen throughout the VCCS since 2005. The increase will also fund the colleges’ portion of employee salary increases and higher health insurance costs.

“This tuition decision balances our priorities of access and quality. It permits Virginia’s Community Colleges to advance its long-held goal of hiring more full-time faculty members and offering more science and technology programs, which are expensive to offer, while adhering to our public promise of affordability,” said Hank W. Chao, chair of the State Board for Community Colleges.

This chart depicts the fall semester credit hours taught by full-time VCCS faculty members from 2002 through 2012 and includes the goal for 2013.

KEEPING A PUBLIC PROMISE

The board’s tuition decision is in accord with Achieve 2015, the VCCS six-year strategic plan that calls for keeping community college tuition and fee rates at one-half or less than that of the comparable rates at Virginia’s four-year universities.

Currently, tuition and mandatory fees at Virginia’s Community Colleges are just over one-third (37.6 percent) of the average of comparable tuition and fees charged by Virginia’s public four-year institutions.

TUITION DIFFERENTIALS

The State Board also agreed to increase the tuition differential rate for Northern Virginia Community College by $2.00 per credit hour. Even with the differential, NVCC’s tuition remains the lowest among comparable colleges in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Further, the board approved an increase of $1.00 per credit hour to the tuition differential rate for J. Sargeant Reynolds, Tidewater, Thomas Nelson and Virginia Western community colleges. Tidewater Community College will offset that tuition differential with a $1.00 decrease in its student activity fee. The tuition differential will help the included colleges attract and retain instructors in more competitive urban and suburban labor markets.

OUT-OF-STATE TUITION

The State Board increased the tuition rate for out-of-state students by $5.50 per credit hour to a total of $324.60 per credit hour. Out-of-state students make up approximately five percent of the total enrollment of Virginia’s Community Colleges.

About Virginia’s Community Colleges: Created more than 40 years ago, the VCCS is comprised of 23 community colleges located on 40 campuses across the commonwealth. Together, Virginia’s Community Colleges serve more than 405,000 students a year. For more information, please visit myfuture.vccs.edu.