VSC Funding

  • Print
Details
Created on Friday, 20 November 2015 15:35
Written by Victor Mwangi

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvVERMONT- State funding for higher education has been an issue especially among the Vermont state colleges.

 

The Vermont state college system which includes Community College of Vermont, Castleton University (formerly Castleton State College), Johnson and Lyndon state colleges, and Vermont Technical College only gets $24.3 million to split among themselves out of the $67 million that is awarded by the state. While the remaining  $42.5 million, goes to University of Vermont (UVM).

“The primary source of funding for the Vermont state college system for a long time has been the tuition and the trustees are reluctant to continue to raise tuition out of fear that it will make post secondary or college not affordable for our students”, said Jeb Spaulding Chancellor of the Vermont state colleges.  “On the other hand, if we don’t raise tuition, the other source of money is the state appropriation which already provides very low level of state support.”

Spaulding, who’s only been the chancellor since last January, believes that it is important to allow young people to get the same education that he did when he went to college during his time. In the early 1990’s, the state of Vermont supported about half of public higher education budgets. Currently today the support has dropped down to 15 percent.   

Earlier this year, Senator Anthony Pollina introduced legislation to change the way higher education was funded in Vermont. Under Pollina's plan, the state funding would be based on the number of Vermonters attending the Vermont State Colleges or University of Vermont. Resulting to more funding for the state colleges and less for the University. According to Valley News, Pollina stated that Vermont is at the bottom when it comes to state support giving its public higher education.

Pollina’s proposed bill is one of the many bills that have been proposed to improve the VSC funding.