Board approves tuition hike

Unfortunately for Faliza Kabani, the cost of attending college is going up.

Kabani, a 21-year-old North Lake College student, takes classes, works in the advising office and pays her own tuition. Kabani will also shell out more for classes next semester. After the tuition hike, she has to be a better money manager unless her budget gets bigger.

“I don't like it personally,” Kabani said, “because I am paying for school myself.”

The Dallas County Community College District will implement a $3-per-semester-credit-hour tuition increase next semester. Tuition will also increase $6 per credit hour for out-of-county students, and $9 per credit hour for out-of-state and outof-country students.

The tuition increase was implemented because increasing enrollment at the seven colleges required additional financial support. According to Ed DesPlas, DCCCD's chancellor for business affairs, funds are also needed to add more fulltime faculty, for increased utility costs,information and instructional technologies upgrades, general operations and other factors.

Mary Ciminelli, NLC's Vice President of Student Services and enrollment management, said, “Although we regret the need to increase tuition, the additional revenue is necessary in order for us to continue providing quality programs and services to our students.”

Members of the DCCCD Board of Trustees approved the tuition increase during their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 3. North Lake was represented by Trustee Kitty Boyle. Boyle was elected to represent North Lake College and is the incoming chair for the Association of Community College Trustees.

Despite the increase in tuition, Ann Hatch, district director of media relations, said that the DCCCD “still offers the best cost for education” in the area.

Although the cost of education in the area is rising, the new tuition is also lower than most colleges in other states. A California community college costs $26 per unit, but also has about $330 in fees, so a semester costs about $720 for 15 credit hours.

According to the College Board, the average cost for attending a public two-year university in 2005 was $2,191. For in-county North Lake and DCCCD students, it costs $585 for 15 hours, much lower than the average.

Even though the relative cost is low, tuition has steadily been going up for the past several years. Tuition cost has risen $16 per unit in seven years. Kabani said that a $3 increase “doesn't sound like a big deal, but if it keeps rising that's a different story.” When asked if DCCCD was planning another increase in tuition, Hatch said she was “not aware of any discussion of that going on in the near future.”

When NLC student Katie Owens heard of the increase, she said she was “pretty upset.” However, after thinking about it for a while, she said she would ”gladly pay that much more here than go to a larger university and pay a lot more to take the same classes.