Despite more city aid, Community College of Philadelphia looking at tuition hike

Mayor Michael Nutter’s budget would send $1 million additional to the Community College of Philadelphia, but tuition will still go up. 

“The practical consequence of that since we are getting no assistance at any other level is it would allow us to moderate tuition increase for students this year,” said CCP president Stephen Curtis, noting how public colleges and universities in Pennsylvania have been mostly dealing with cuts or flat-funding from Harrisburg.  “When we get no assistance from anyone it puts even more attention on student tuition.”

Curtis testified at City Council budget hearings that he can’t say yet how much tuition will rise. He says the college is expanding its offerings even so.

“One of our newer efforts and one that we expect to expand in the next two or three years, is bringing high schools seniors to finish their senior year in high school on our campus by taking exclusively college courses,” he said. “It’s dual enrollment so it counts as high school units as well.”

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Changes in federal higher education funding will hurt the institution says Curtis, decreasing work study and cutting direct grants to the college.

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