JACKSON, Miss. – As enrollment at Mississippi’s 15 community colleges continues to break records, faculty will visit Jackson next week during a grassroots advocacy effort at the state Capitol.
Members of the Mississippi Faculty Association for Community and Junior Colleges - along with students and two-year college presidents - will meet with legislators Thursday, Feb. 18 at the Capitol. They’ll have a 9:30 a.m. news conference in the rotunda and will meet with lawmakers individually.
Enrollments at the 15 community college soared in the fall. Preliminary figures for fall 2009 show enrollment was up nearly 10,000 students system wide from fall 2009, an increase of 13 percent. Eleven of the 15 colleges had increases of more than 10 percent with the largest increase nearly 20 percent.
“Mississippi’s 15 community and junior colleges are the best educational value in our state, and they are essential for preparing our citizens for 21st century jobs,” said Dr. Eric Clark, executive director of the State Board for Community and Junior Colleges. “Last school year, approximately a quarter of a million Mississippians took classes from one of our community colleges, and we expect enrollment numbers to continue to increase. Our community colleges are getting thousands of Mississippians off welfare and out of minimum wage jobs, and allowing them to make their families and their communities more prosperous, and also pay more taxes to state and local governments.”
Yet, despite the fact that students flock to their community colleges during troubled economic times for the first two years of their bachelor’s degree or for job training and retraining, state funding for community college budgets has been slashed more than 8 percent this year, and the colleges are bracing for more cuts.
“Enrollment and state funding are going in opposite directions,” said Dr. Clyde Muse, president of Hinds Community College, where enrollment grew 14 percent in the fall and more than 20 percent for the spring semester that began in January.
Muse said 68 percent of college freshmen in Mississippi started at a community college in 2009. “The fact that we have held the line on student tuition and fees is evidence that we operate on lean budgets,” he said. Hinds has not raised tuition for five years.
Although tuition from the increased enrollments does help the colleges cover additional instructors and expanded services, tuition does not cover the full cost of these expenses. Tuition and fees generate only 27 percent of the funding for community colleges, Clark said.
In 2007, lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour committed to mid-level funding through Senate Bill 2364, a historic measure endorsing per-student funding for community colleges that is midway between per-student funding for K-12 students and regional public university students. The colleges are asking for $64.7 million for mid-level funding in FY 2011.
“When fall 2009 enrollment is factored in our growth, we are serving 40 percent more students than our colleges did in 2000,” said Willis Lott, president of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and chairman of the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges. “Essentially, community colleges are operating with one-third less state funds than the system received in fiscal year 2000.”
Added Dr. Phil A. Sutphin, president of East Central Community College in Decatur: “East Central Community College faces the same issues as the other community and junior colleges in the State. Our enrollment is increasing while State funding is decreasing. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we are teaching at capacity for both our instructors and our facilities.”
Among Thursday’s speakers will be Dr. Kyle Hill, president of the Mississippi Faculty Association for Community and Junior Colleges and faculty member at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, and Bob Smith, instructor at Jones County Junior College and vice president of the faculty association, which has more than 1,000 active members.
Also speaking will be Mack-Arthur Turner Jr., Student Body Association president at Itawamba Community College; Dr. Eric Clark, executive director for the State Board for Community and Junior Colleges and Dr. Willis Lott, president of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and chairman of the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges.
As Mississippi’s largest community college, Hinds Community College is a comprehensive institution offering quality, affordable educational opportunities with more than 170 academic, career and technical programs. With six locations in central Mississippi, Hinds is on track to serve more than 30,000 credit and noncredit students in the 2009-10 academic year. To learn more, visit www.hindscc.edu or call 1.800.HindsCC.