Both Johnson State College and Vermont Technical College have recently announced staffing cuts coming next year due to budget shortfalls, in part because they’re forced to rely on tuition – not state funding – for the vast majority of their revenues.
A new program to provide debt forgiveness to college graduates who stay in Vermont drew praise from Gov. Peter Shumlin and higher education leaders on Monday, but it doesn’t address the state’s low funding of public colleges and universities.
"Vermont's a state that doesn't fund higher education as well as I think we would all like to." - VSC Chancellor Timothy Donovan
Vermont State Colleges Chancellor Timothy Donovan praised the new program, which will provide debt forgiveness on up to one year of college to Vermont students who stay in the state and work in certain fields for five years after graduation.
But Donovan also took his time at an event with Gov. Peter Shumlin and lawmakers to talk about the state’s funding for public colleges and universities.
“As you all know, Vermont’s a state that doesn’t fund higher education as well as I think we would all like to,” Donovan said.
According to the 2013 State Higher Education Finance Report – a national report prepared by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association – Vermont’s funding appropriation per full-time equivalent student is $2,655, the second-lowest in the nation.
The report also said that tuition makes up 85.3 percent of the revenue of Vermont’s public colleges and universities, the highest rate in the nation. Because of that, Donovan said in an interview, schools’ revenues are more susceptible to budgetary challenges caused by drops in enrollment.
“Vermont Technical College’s enrollment is off about 10 percent from three or four years ago. Johnson’s is off about five percent from three or four years ago,” Donovan said. “And so when your revenue decreases, you have to adjust expenditures.”
Shumlin said Monday that he wishes public higher education was funded better in Vermont, but that “we can’t work magic, obviously. When we don’t have the money, we can’t pay the bills.”
The governor also said he was pleased that the last two years have seen consecutive increases in higher education funding after years of level funding. Lawmakers boosted public funding to state colleges and UVM by three percent last year and by another one percent this year.
Last year’s increase was the first since 2009.
