Make furthering education a priority

Our Opinion

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Enrollment at the Prince Frederick campus is up. But tuition at the college could also be going up.

Both of these increases seem to be due to the recession. Last week Bradley M. Gottfried, president of CSM, told the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners that people who want more training and more career options are signing up for classes, and enrollment at Prince Frederick alone is up 7 percent.

But higher tuition has been terrible news for the students who have already been trying to further their careers through classes at CSM. Gottfried told the commissioners that the school is losing students who should be and want to be going to school but cannot afford the cost. This is a frightening situation, not just for those students, but for the region. CSM has been educating students for 50 years now, and more and more students keep pouring in. The Prince Frederick campus is bursting at the seams, trying to find space for all of the students who want to attend classes there.

The college offers nursing classes and now engineering and science programs. These programs are a service to this region, which has a growing demand for health care workers and science-related jobs. In other words, the college is willing to tailor its offerings to fit the needs of the community it supports.

All of the campuses in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties offer ways for high school students to get a head start on college with concurrent enrollment.

These are just a few of the reasons that Southern Maryland needs CSM. We need to find ways to support it, and help it support us. Raising tuition is an unfortunate decision that is not being taken lightly, and we are sorry to see it happen. State money is hard to come by these days, and no one knows that better than educators. But if we don't support our schools, from preschool through higher education, then what will happen to our future?

CSM's enrollment boom is a perfect example of what this state needs to survive: More education, and more ways for people to help themselves. The state should make that a priority.