The top headline in the Wednesday Northwest Herald read,
MCC trustees weigh tuition hike
Student government representatives voice support for increase
Every year McHenry County College Board members consider whether to raise tuition and fees.
And this is at least the second time students have been strangely represented by their appointed student government.
Get on student government, you see, and you get a tuition waiver.
So, what might administrators at MCC have done to convince students to ask for the people they are supposed to represent to pay more for their education?
Not only was tuition being discussed, but a way to avoid asking taxpayers to borrow money to pay for building maintenance, improvements and additions was being supported by the students.
Students would be asked to pay “infrastructure” fees.
That’s an interesting concept:
forcing students to pay for replacing the roof, for example, rather than forcing the taxpayers to pay more.
What do readers think of that choice?
Fronting for an administration’s desires, if that was what the student government reps were doing, reminds me of my first Student Council meeting at Crystal Lake Central High School.
Way back in 1959, the first meeting of my senior year was held in a first-floor classroom.
Superintendent John Buckner asked the Council to approve a resolution that would move the smoking corner from right outside the back door next to the field house to the edge of the back parking lot.
I asked why he needed our support, couldn’t he do that on his own.
He pretty much admitted that he could.
When the motion was called i and a couple of others voted, “No.”
It seemed to me that those with the authority to make changes should take the heat, not those who only played–at best–an advisory role.
Potemkin Village.
Its called being sheep.
It is an excellent idea to have the choice of whether to spend money made by those who both receive the perceived benefits of expenditures AND must foot the bill.
There may be a very different analysis about what expenditures are ‘Needed’.
BTW, MCC tuition/fees cost far less than other County Colleges.
It’s no secret.
The student government are nothing but yes-men for the regime.
Bob and Vicky say jump, they say how hi.
They don’t represent students’ interests — they are shills.
Teachers, trustees, and watchdogs have told me WHY every time there is a tuition increase proposal, the student government comes out in droves to support it.
Basically, the student government gets blackmailed that if they don’t tow the line they’ll lose certain privileges.
This reflects very poorly on both the administration and the student government.
What do they care?
The Resident has informed them it will be free to them!
Susan, you have to look at the demographics.
We don’t have the median income OR density in population that supports tuition of ‘other colleges’.
This makes me sick.
Apparently it’s getting harder and harder to get people to go to this college.
Enrollment dropping and will continue to do so.
These ‘students’ are tools.
What sell outs- They must be planning to go into politics.
Better get a conservative majority on that board April 7th or Property Tax Hikes WILL Happen.
Tuition increases WILL happen. Enrollment and success rate will continue to plummet and pride will diminish.
http://www.MCCin2016.com
and hold them accountable!
We can reduce costs at MCC:
1. Stop paying for consultants to create plans for spending many millions on unnecessary new buildings/rehab of existing buildings, and stop buying farmland at extraordinary per-acre prices.
2. Control Administration salary and pension and healthcare costs.
3. Pay teachers more today, in return for participation in portable 401K plans rather than defined benefit plans.
If we reduce costs (“keeping a flat levy” (which isn’t being done anyway) is NOT reducing costs), tuition can stay low and taxpayers may have a chance of survival.
MCC and all other McHenry County taxing bodies do not seem to realize that the status quo tax rate is unsustainable.
At Woodstock property tax rate of 4%, in order to qualify for a conforming mortgage loan (30 year, 4.1%, on a $200,000 home) the borrower needs to prove 36% Higher Income than to qualify for the same mortgage loan all over America, where the average property tax rate is 1.4%.
This means the pool of buyers for area property is small…unless prices continue to plummet.
Purchasers at foreclosure sales tend to be investors, who tend to rent out their investment property. Investors will not be rewarded for improving property, if improvements are taxed at 4% and rising at double-digit rates annually.
So, we have created a powerful incentive that this community will be destroyed in terms of assessed value.
As assessed value drops the only way for MCC to skirt PTELL is to raise money for ‘building’.
Other communities in the County, no matter how prosperous and gated and insulated they might think they are, will have to pay more to make up for the destroyed community’s lost property tax contribution.
This is how the whole county becomes a black hole: start wiuth one municipality that doesn’t seem to matter, but as its lost tax dollar contribution begins to be felt by ‘surviving’ communities in the county, another community will suffer the same fate as the first one that collapsed….and so on.
Black hole, event horizon, escape velocity….
Are there physics classes being taught at MCC?
At the rate our property tax rates are rising (minimum 12% annually), our tax rates will exceed 10% of home value in 8 1/2 years.
MCC will not have the luxury of new buildings, and paying engineers and consultants more than once for opinions on the same unrealistic project.
Why not allow those with perceived skin in the game (benefit AND cost) to put the brakes on projects driven by forces that do not take economic reality into account?
lol
how about the fact that MCC is asking for a tuition increase based on a cut to state funding — yet Rauner’s budget left community colleges intact.
There is no 30 percent decrease in funding.
There is no 20 percent decrease in funding.
Most of this “deficit” is due to projected “budget cuts” which aren’t even happening.
So… they’ll still ask for a 10 dollar increase regardless of if they need it.
They were apparently trying to get 15 and probably would have if nobody had stood up to question their erroneous numbers.
Come to the meeting on Thursday for a treat!