Unanticipated increase in enrollment creates $3.2 million in extra revenue for the school
Minneapolis Community and Technical College has a $3.2 million surplus due to an unanticipated enrollment increase. The college projected an increase of 3 percent, and the actual number was closer to 13 percent.
Assorted groups on campus have presented recommendations to MCTC President Phil Davis about how to spend the money. One of those groups is the Minnesota State College Faculty (MSCF) union. Their priorities were presented to Davis in an e-mail from Thomas Eland, the local MSCF president, which was shared with others associated with MCTC by Eland.
Two priorities listed in Eland’s e-mail were restoring funding to MCTC’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, and funding Dr. Joe Rine’s position as a counselor on campus after he retires this spring.
By Eland’s estimates, basketball would cost roughly $100,000 to fund both teams, and Rine’s position would cost between $50,000 to $65,000 to retain plus benefits.
Rine supports the MSCF’s recommendation to retain his position. He explained that in April 2009, the Faculty Association passed a
unanimous resolution that his position would be retained. He went on to explain that he hoped a counselor would have been hired to take his place by January 2010 so that he would have had time to work with them.
He said that it is “extremely sad to him that at time when our enrollment continues to increase, we are decreasing our number of professional counselors.”
Rine went on to say that students “deserve to have professional counselors to help them when challenges arise.” He also explained that “faculty support for additional counselors is extremely appreciated by the entire department.”
“The faculty leadership has worked very hard to retain my position to no avail,” he added.
Davis has some of his own ideas about how the money would be best spent.
He said that he would like to reduce class sizes back to 2009 levels per faculty requests which would take between $500,000 and $600,000 of the $3.2 million surplus. Another idea Davis has is to use the money to offer “tuition relief ” to students, which would mean they’d see a 2 percent tuition increase instead of the 5 percent increase that the board of trustees authorized.
Davis said another possibility for the surplus money is to hire additional staff to support the growing student population in areas such as financial aid and disability services.
In an interview Davis said that “we’ll be looking for recommendations from different places like [faculty] unions and then make final recommendations.”
There will be an all-college meeting on May 12 at which time these issues will be discussed before the budget is finalized.
When the budget is finalized, it will be available on the finance area of MCTC’s website.
