A couple of days ago, Bridge Michigan published an article about the relative “free-ness” of the Michigan Community College Guarantee. While Governor Gretchen Whitmer advertises the plan as “tuition-free” college for all Michigan high school graduates, terms and conditions apply.
Only those students who live in a community college district and graduated from high school in 2023 or 2024 can claim the tuition guarantee. About 20% of otherwise eligible students don’t live in a district. The reason the guarantee doesn’t extend to all students everywhere is because local funding plays a huge role in how two-year schools get funded.
Taxpayers in a defined region have agreed to fund a local college through property taxes. In exchange, students who live in the district get a reduced tuition rate, compared to the actual cost of educating that person. The State of Michigan also allocates funding to each community college, so students who live in the state but not in the district get a slightly lower rate than students who live out of state or out of the country.
Because at the base of the issue, it simply isn’t fair to give someone who didn’t support the institution via the payment of property taxes or state taxes to get favorable tuition treatment, right?
Well, the WCC Board of Trustees doesn’t feel that way. They’ve granted a reduced tuition rate to anyone who enrolls in online classes at WCC. So, students who live out of district, out of the state, or even out of the country can enjoy low tuition for online classes thanks to the generosity of the Washtenaw County taxpayers.
There is one exception to this largesse. If you are a Washtenaw County resident, and you want to take online classes, you get to pay extra.
Community college benefits come at a cost
This is what happens when college executives – who don’t live in the district – design a tuition plan to attract students. It’s so easy to spend other people’s money, so they give away the tax subsidy that district residents created exclusively for themselves.
Why should Washtenaw County taxpayers subsidize the attendance costs of people who don’t live in Washtenaw County, don’t work in Washtenaw County, and will never come to Washtenaw County? What benefit do the taxpayers of Washtenaw County get from offering discounted tuition to non-residents?
This isn’t right. Washtenaw County residents built and paid for WCC to address our own education and training needs. If non-residents want to use the Michigan Community College Guarantee, they have a few options:
- Prospective students can move into a district.
- Non-district residents can encourage their locality to join an existing district. The Michigan Community College Act does not require a district to be contiguous. In theory, a single district could collocate in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas as long as it excludes residents of an existing district.
- Unserved areas can create (and pay for) their own community college districts.
Decisions have consequences. When residents of an area choose not to join a community college district, the consequence is that they pay out of district tuition when they want to enroll in someone else’s community college.
Everyone – including the WCC Board of Trustees – should understand that there is a distinct benefit to making the communal investment in building and funding a community college. Those who decline to share in the cost of doing so should not receive any part of that benefit.
Photo Credit: Focal Foto , via Flickr
