By Garrick Hoffman

Let’s expose the recent happenings on (and off, in fact) of campus again, shall we?

On Friday, March 21st, President Cantor held a forum in the Health Science building that focused on the financial challenges we here at SMCC face today, and what the financial scene could look like in the future. It also touched upon enrollment, what it’s looked like in the past, and what the current state is. The forum, open to students and faculty alike, came at a particularly appropriate time, when USM faces considerably staggering layoffs, and when SMCC is seeing a lower enrollment rate from previous years, and has just seen two programs cut, and one program downsized in response to budgetary issues. The forum also proved to be very informative, and we can appreciate President Cantor’s aim to maintain a pervasive transparency in an effort to keep both students and faculty informed.

Throughout the forum, both students and faculty members were given opportunities to offer input, ask questions, and overall gather new, useful information. President Cantor offered packets with graphs and figures that covered multiple bases: full-time student enrollment by term each year, revenues per full-time enrolled student, costs and net revenues of academic programs, student success rate by program, and a list of financial achievements and decisions the school has seen.

President Cantor remains both steadfast and adamant about augmenting the tuition to the vicinity of $98 per credit hour (it’s at $88 now). He has implored the Board of Trustees to do so, but they, too, remain steadfast in their stance: to keep the tuition in Maine Community Colleges low so people can earn their education at an affordable rate.

In this age, however, with colleges such as ours submitting to faculty cuts and program elimination, to raise the tuition may be necessary. Although we can admire the Board of Trustee’s efforts to maintain a low tuition for students, President Cantor argues, a small, reasonable tuition hike (so as to not deter aspiring college students) can be beneficial for the college’s best financial interests and for maintaining a high level of quality for the students’ educational experience. He acknowledged that the school is indeed not a business, but it nonetheless needs to “pay the bills” somehow, and the college does not want to see faculty layoffs and/or further program eliminations. Options begin to slim down when all other known options are exhausted.

College, no matter where you go, is not cheap, and the rise of tuition throughout the community college system will affect new and continuing students. Putting our selves in the shoes of the administration, we can ask the question, is a small hike in tuition reasonable and justifiable in order to sustain the college? On the surface it may seem like the subject is moot because the student body does not have a say in whether or not tuition increases. However, we should know what the increase in tuition is getting us.