College will raise tuition and fees

Cost at CSM will increase by $4 per credit to $98 each

Friday, July 4, 2008

The College of Southern Maryland tuition and fees may be paid over a four-month period through the tuition payment plan, which is available to students enrolled with six or more credits. Since the plan is not a loan program, there is no debt, no credit search and no interest or finance charge assessed on the unpaid balance. There is a $35 per semester nonrefundable enrollment fee. For information on the payment plan, contact the bursar’s office at 301-934-7712 or 301-870-2309, 240-725-5499 or 443-550-6199, Ext. 7712 or go to www.csmd.edu.

By JESSE YEATMAN

Staff writer

The College of Southern Maryland is raising tuition and fees for students starting in the fall semester to help cope with rising utility, health insurance and other costs.

Faculty will forgo any cost of living increase next year but will still get step increases, which average about 3 percent per employee. Other college staff will see a 3 percent raise plus up to 1.5 percent extra based on merit evaluations.

The college anticipates about $50.37 million in revenue this year, an overall increase of 6.5 percent but less than requested from the governments that fund the college.

Tuition at the College of Southern Maryland will increase $4 per credit to $98 for residents of St. Mary’s, Calvert and Charles counties.

In addition the combined per-credit fee, which has not increased since 1997, will now be $22.54 per credit, about $4 higher. Fees are used to fund student activities and deferred maintenance.

Ruth Bettenhausen, the college’s vice president of finance, said a full-time student taking 15 credits will pay about $116 more per semester for the tuition and fee increases. For that student tuition and fees will be about $1,800 per semester beginning this fall. The tuition and fee increases, combined with an expected 5 percent increase in enrollment, will bring in about $2.2 million more next year.

State aid is projected to increase by 8.6 percent this year. St. Mary’s County will contribute about 7 percent more compared to a 5 percent increase from Calvert and 3.5 percent increase from Charles.

St. Mary’s was the only jurisdiction that fully funded the community college’s budget request. Neither Charles nor Calvert counties funded the requested increases, Bettenhausen said.

‘‘We have no agreement. It is whatever they want to give us,” she said of the three counties’ contributions. ‘‘The only one that gave us what we asked for was St. Mary’s.”

As for the state, planned funding increases to Maryland’s community colleges were trimmed by a total of about $2 million. The state contributed about $421,000 less than requested by the College of Southern Maryland.

‘‘We may yet get another cut before the end of the year,” Bettenhausen said.

According to the college, a student would save between $15,000 and $20,000 by attending the first two years of college at CSM instead of an in-state university for a bachelor’s degree.

Tuition for in-state students at St. Mary’s College of Maryland will be $5,236 per semester starting this fall and the cost of tuition plus mandatory fees at University of Maryland, College Park, will be about $4,000 per semester.

‘‘The college has presented a budget that balances the higher costs we anticipate with regard to utility and insurance increases and continues the progress we are making. We will work to ensure that no student is denied an education because of these tuition increases,” Bradley M. Gottfried, college president, said in a statement.

The cost of family health insurance coverage for faculty and staff will rise about $1,035 per employee per year. The 21 percent increase for health insurance was unexpected, Bettenhausen said, and the cost is shared by employees and the college.