Less money for higher education in Oklahoma’s 2018 budget translates into a loss of $1.8 million for Tulsa Community College.
That means TCC’s state allocation has fallen $9 million since 2015. President Leigh Goodson said the college must keep up with the changing needs of its students, but all it can do right now is make cuts.
"It's nearly impossible for us to invest in different methods in terms of educating our students. We're doing it — it's proceeding much slower than our students need," Goodson said.
One savings measure has been leaving teaching positions vacant.
"We'll fill some of the more critical ones, but there are some high-enrollment courses where we would really like to hire more full-time faculty," Goodson said.
Other cuts TCC has made include eliminating campus nurses, trimming 25 percent of its course sections, reorganizing academic affairs to work with fewer student advisers, and doing away with both campus print shops and desktop printers.
Goodson said continued higher ed cuts run counter to the state’s needs. It’s estimated nearly four in five new jobs by 2025 will require at least some postsecondary education. Right now, only half the state’s workforce has more than a high-school diploma.
On top of the cut to overall higher education funding, the state is reimbursing less for concurrent enrollment, which lets high school seniors earn college credits before they graduate.
TCC committed to continuing 2016–2017 school year levels of concurrent enrollment in February. Goodson said the lower reimbursement rate will cost TCC roughly $500,000.
"Students that have some concurrent enrollment finish college at a much higher rate than those that haven't had that experience, so it's our hope that we can continue investing in that," Goodson said. "Although, we're faced with a budget where we're having to make extremely hard choices."
Nearly 3,400 Tulsa-area high-school seniors earned credits last year through TCC concurrent enrollment.
The cuts will also delay a proposal for a partnership with a local district that would allow students to earn an associate's degree by the time they graduate high school. TCC was working on the details and had not announced a timeline, but that initiative is effectively on hold now.
