Dive Brief:
- Pima County Community college is one of three Arizona community colleges that would completely lose state funding if the current budget gets approved by lawmakers, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
- Pima doesn’t stand to lose much money based on how little it has received from the state in recent years, but the budget cut symbolically severs a connection virtually all community colleges have.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reports Pima County Community College Chancellor Lee Lambert as saying he doesn’t want to raise tuition to cover the budget cut and also wonders what state requirements, like data reporting, will fall away when the government has no leverage for mandates.
Dive Insight:
The share of Pima County Community College’s total budget that comes from state funding is less than 3%, according to dollar amounts quoted by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Maricopa Community College, The Chronicle reports, will lose just 1%. But the deeper issue is about a state’s role in education. This budget cut could be restored in future years, but in the meantime, if community colleges in Pima, Maricopa, and Pinal counties stop reporting enrollment and success figures to the state, the government will lose important data about its students.
Arizona is one of a handful of states this budget season facing significant cuts to higher education, as we reported here. While the industry as a whole is on the upswing, these outliers are significant.