It’s going to cost more to attend Onondaga Community College this fall. The Onondaga County Legislature approved a budget that includes a tuition hike. OCC President Casey Crabill says tuition is going up just under 3 percent for the 2016-1017 school year.
"It’s going up $70 for a full-time student, $6 a credit unit for part-time students. We would like to work to go a year without a tuition increase, but that’s been really difficult.”
And OCC is not the only SUNY community college that's raising tuition. Monroe Community College, near Rochester, for example, is looking at an 8 percent tuition hike. Crabill says one of the problems is that New York state isn’t stepping up to support these two-year schools.
"The community colleges request was for $285 per full-time student, and the state gave us $100. The request was based on the necessity of contractual agreements and the like. So there’s a big gap there.”
Crabill says this won’t impact students who rely on the state’s Tuition Assistance Program or the federal Pell Grant program to pay for school, because tuition is within program guidelines.
OCC’s budget itself was flat, increasing less than one-third of one percent. And it required no increase in contributions from Onondaga County government.
