Tuition-free program
Tuition-free community college will continue in spring.
Tuition-free community college will continue in Connecticut in the spring after the Board of Regents for Higher Education’s finance committee voted Wednesday to spend $3 million in reserves to fund the program for the upcoming semester.
Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, had warned in September that, given the system’s coronavirus-driven budget woes, “unless the state follows through on its promise to students and appropriates funding” the program would have to be canceled or postponed.
At Wednesday’s meeting, committee members were shared a letter Ojakian received from legislative leaders on Oct. 23 committing to $12 million in funding toward tuition-free community college for this year and the next, including $6 million to reimburse CSCUfor money it borrowed from its reserves to pay for the program’s first year.
“While funding for the PACT program has been a challenge, it is clear that the program is meeting a real need for affordable college tuition, and we acknowledge the risk that the Board of Regents took by funding it this fall,” Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, House Speaker-elect Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and leaders of the legislature’s higher education and appropriations committees wrote to Ojakian. “We also recognize that the pandemic has hit CSCU very hard, with steep drops in enrollment, half-full dormitories, and new costs to bear as you adapt to remote and hybrid teaching. In light of these budget issues you face, we understand that our community colleges cannot afford to continue to fund this program without the state after this semester.”
Ben Barnes, the CSCU system’s chief financial officer, said there remains risk “that the legislature will not be able to pass such an item or that the governor will not sign such an item or that other events will get in the way and we won’t see the $12 million.”
But “we have a group of heavy hitters who should hold the authority and the ability to deliver on the commitment they’ve made in this letter.”
“I think it’s pretty solid having the letter rather than having the verbal commitment by the leadership so I would think that is going to happen ... I think the dollars will