CCs in the Great Recession

“We are enjoying sluggish times and not enjoying them

very much.” George H. W. Bush

Travis MerriganCommunity Colleges of Spokane

CCs in the Great Recession

• A quick glance at the recession and its current effects

• The Obama Plan• The Great Recession and CC outreach

Personal: CCs are slightly worse places to work

• Pay and Benefit cuts• Travel, conferences cut• Extra work (vacancies)• Advancement (slowed retirement)

Budget & Tuition: Bad news is good

• Affordability: – Vis-à-vis universities – • 7% to 14% or +$179 (CCS) to +$870 (WSU)

– Pell Grant increase ($5,350 from $4,731) • Means 184% of 2009-10 tuition (174% - 2008-09)

• Initial cuts were healthy

Enrollment: good news is bad

• Good or bad?– Extra tuition dollars– Unlike the U’s, we preserver (disingenuous Univ.)– Enrollment vs. Market Share– Delays improvements (online, programmatic)– Hurts least-sophisticated students

Institutional view

• CCs inefficiently distribute cuts– Inability to close mediocre programs– Cut young faculty, not awful faculty

• Worthwhile changes put off– Online investment– Mediocre programs saved by bloated enrollment

Unfilled Vacancies• Single largest

budget savings• Flawed as a

business practice• Strains remaining

staff • Lowers moral• Furloughs vs.

layoffs

Future• CCs will have a hard time getting funding back– Federal money ends– Lots of competition from K-12, Health Care,

Universities

• CCs will lose market share after recession– Limited online options– Day-evening inflexibility

• Old folk put off retirement– Advancement?

Obama and the CCs

• Obama consistently talked about CCs on the campaign trail

• Undersecretary of Ed is former CC Chancellor• Second Lady - NVCC• Increased mediaawareness• Obama CC Plan

Obama’s CC Plan

• $12billion ($2.5b for buildings(interest of borrowed money), $0.5b for online)

• $9b given out competitively– Some to states, some directly to CCs– Larger colleges better-prepared benefit • Opportunity?

– Money available for outreach?

How big is Obama’s CC Plan, really?

• $9b ÷ 10 years = $900m/year• $900m/y ÷ 1,045 CCs Nationwide* =

$860,000/CC/y• Spokane CC 2007-08 annual budget = $41m• CC Plan = ~2.1% of operating budget• But hey, at least somebody’s talking about us

• * 2006-07 National Center for Education Statistics

Equal time• Bush $250m CC Plan –

March 2005• Republicans love CCs

too

Obama’s CC Plan: Blowback

• David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, “unfair and unwise... for the first time have the federal government providing funds directly to one sector of American higher education, to the exclusion of other sectors…”

Obama’s CC Plan: Blowback

• U’s get 3x more federal funding per student*• U’s won $47b research funding (2006)**– $29.9b federal funding

• 40% goes to colleges for ‘overhead’• Virtually no research funding goes to CCs

• *Brookings Institute • **Center for Measuring University Performance – Arizona

State University

Outreach vs. Recruitment

WA CC District 17Class of 20046,217 students

Outreach, now more than ever

• Outreach-oriented should trump recruiting– Awareness and education– Special focus on financial aid

• CCs will lose market share after recession– Limited online options– Day-evening inflexibility

• Shift to eRecruiting?

The good news

• CCs enjoy unique advantages• Friends in high places• Recession increases appreciation• Media and scholarly attention is increasing• CCs need new ideas

Gracias

Travis MerriganCommunity Colleges of Spokane

tmerrigan@ccs.spokane.edu