ST. PAUL—Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College students will pay more for their schooling next year, even as university and college leaders trimmed their schools’ operating budgets.
Minnesota State’s board of trustees approved Wednesday the college and university system’s budget for next year, which includes widespread tuition and student fee hikes and $1.56 million in cuts at BSU and Northwest Technical College.
At BSU, university leaders cut some duty days and release time for faculty there, deferred some special equipment purchases, reduced travel and supply budgets and student worker hours, left open a vacant maintenance worker job, and eliminated a fixed-time faculty position at a university-run business administration program at Anoka-Ramsey Community College.
At NTC, the high-performance engine machining program will be phased out along with a faculty spot. A second faculty member’s job could also end up on the chopping block, depending on enrollment numbers there.
University and technical college staff used some of the money they freed up with the cuts to add an institutional researcher, a grant writer, and one staffer each at the university’s diversity center, American Indian Resource Center, and Title IX program.
The combined cuts saved $1.88 million, which is partially offset by the $321,000 incurred by the new positions.
But those cuts only closed a portion of the deficit university finance staff predicted last winter and spring. The systemwide budget includes tuition and student fee increases at several public colleges and universities, including BSU and NTC.
Under the newly-minted budget, 30-credit BSU students will pay an additional $283 dollars per year in tuition and fees next school year, bringing their annual costs there to $8,677. NTC students will be asked to fork over another $51, bringing their total tuition and fees to $5,480 a year.
The bulk of BSU and NTC’s funding is determined by state lawmakers, who struck a higher education deal last spring that sends an additional $106.3 million to Minnesota State, which asked for a $178 million funding bump instead. The new law also freezes tuition at all Minnesota State colleges and universities for the 2018-19 school year.
Minnesota State staff said the legislative deal provides “insufficient resources for our colleges and universities to balance their budgets into the future” and warned of a “state appropriation funding cliff.” The funding structure enacted by the legislature, staff said in documents supplied before the board of trustees’ meeting, does not support inflationary costs and would create a $33.8 million structural deficit in the 2019 fiscal year.
BSU and NTC President Faith Hensrud said the state funding boost and tuition increases will allow the schools to continue providing high-quality education to students there.
“But this approach cannot be sustained year after year,” Hensrud wrote to the Pioneer. “We must have greater state support to fulfill our mission of preparing graduates for success in the global economy.”
The 2018 fiscal year begins July 1.