The cost to study at Heartland Community College is going up for a third straight year.
At its Tuesday meeting, the college’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously in approving a 3.2% tuition increase of $5 per credit hour for the 2020-21 academic year. With a total tuition and fees cost of $163 dollars per hour, Heartland students carrying a 15-hour course load will pay $75 more per semester.
“Of course we never like to be in a position where it’s necessary to raise tuition or fees,” said Heartland vice president for finance Doug Minter. “But we look at all of the moving parts of the budget, all of the revenue sources we have, all the expenditures we’re committed to and that we’re projecting.”
Minter said school administrators informed the Student Senate of the college’s revenue and expenditure projections during a meeting last month before recommending the tuition increase to the board. He described the institution’s financial health as “exceptionally strong.”
“But we have to look at maintaining a balanced budget year after year after year. So, when we project expenditures into the longer term, we still are experiencing a lot of volatility in revenue sources,” he said.
Heartland raised its tuition by $5 per hour in each of the past two years. Minter says the increase will generate an estimated $500,000 in additional revenue to help the college cover scheduled employee raises.
“To the extent we are committed to some salary increases and that tuition is one of the primary sources to cover employee salaries, we try to keep those in line with each other,” he said.
The $163 total breaks down into $155 for tuition, a $7 Student Life Fee, and a $1 Program Development and Facilities Enhancement Fee. According to Minter, roughly two-thirds of the community colleges in Illinois have a total cost of tuition and fees in the range of $130-170 per hour in round figures.
“We provide a service to our district, and every district is different in terms of how they are funded,” he said. “We all rely on local property tax revenue, state revenue from income taxes as well as tuition and fees. But the mix of those is different, significantly different in every district.”
In other action, the Board approved a $250,000 matching contribution required to receive $750,000 in state funds for a deferred maintenance project to repair paved surfaces throughout the campus. Work on the project is expected to begin in the summer of 2021.
The board also renewed its lease of approximately 80 farmland acres with Jerome Denzler for the next two crop years.
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