Harper trustees to vote on tuition proposal in February

Harper College officials plan to prepare a 2016 budget that closes a modest deficit.

Although officials won't unveil a draft budget until the summer, they are currently forecasting a $252,658 shortfall. It's an outlook based on several assumptions, including credit-hour enrollment growing .8 percent.

"That's not a hard task for us to take on," Harper President Ken Ender said of balancing the new budget.

The harder task for the Palatine-based community college is avoiding an estimated $11.9 million hole in 2020 - a scenario also based on assumptions on the revenue and expense side. For instance, financial planners had tuition increasing only at the rate of inflation over the next five years.

Ender said he "can guarantee that number isn't going to show up in 2020."

But the scenario provides a context for decisions before Harper's board. It also was part of a five-year financial forecast reviewed by trustees Tuesday.

One decision on the horizon is whether to raise tuition and fees again for the next school year.

"It is a consideration that we need to take seriously in order to maintain our quality programs and in order to move forward with a budget that we feel comfortable with," board Chairwoman Diane Hill said.

Administrators haven't made a recommendation yet, but the board expects to vote on their proposal in February.

This school year, students pay $126.25 per credit hour, an increase of $1.75 (construction and technology fees - $16 - went unchanged). Ranking the most affordable tuition rates at Illinois' 38 community college districts, Harper comes in at No. 29, officials say. Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg ranks at the bottom, with $145 per credit hour.

The increase was the second at Harper since the board adopted a policy in 2012 that connects tuition raises to the rate of inflation. Trustees can bump tuition by 2 percentage points above the consumer price index for urban consumers up to a 5 percent cap.

Under the original funding formula envisioned for Illinois community colleges, the state was supposed to contribute a third of the per capita costs of running the institution. But falling revenue from Springfield has colleges shifting more of the burden to taxpayers and students.

In the 2014 fiscal year, the top revenue sources for Harper's operating fund were: tuition and fees at 42.6 percent, property tax revenue at 49.6 percent and state at 6.5 percent.

"That's why we're seeing tuition increases for the last decade or more that we just hadn't seen before in Illinois," said Ron Ally, Harper's executive vice president of financial and administrative services.

"They were always relatively small."