Northeastern Tech planning tuition rates raise

By: | SCNOW
Published: June 26, 2008

Northeastern Technical College will raise tuition this fall semester because of increasing operation costs and decreasing state allocations.

Full-time tuition for students from Chesterfield, Marlboro and Dillon counties will be raised to $1,620 a semester, or $135 per semester hour. That would be an increase of $144 from this past fall semester.

Out-of-county students will pay $1,728 a semester, or $144 per semester hour, while out-of-state students will pay $2,928 a semester, or $244 per semester hour.

Out-of-county residents’ tuition increased $156, while out-of-state tuition increased $216 from the past fall semester.

The college’s board of trustees approved the increase during a monthly meeting Tuesday. Elsewhere in the Pee Dee, members of the Florence-Darlington County Commission for Technical Education voted June 18 against increasing tuition for the fall semester at Florence-Darlington Technical College.

Northeastern Tech President Dr. Ron Bartley said the college is “committed to maintaining the high level of student service and personal attention (the college) provides to students.

“Serving our students remains our first concern and we are looking in other areas to decrease our student’s out-of-pocket expenses,” Bartley said in a press release issued by the college.

To decrease expenses for students, the college will offer a four-day class schedule beginning in the fall.

Classes will be held Monday through Thursday, leaving Friday available for professional development for faculty and staff. The college will remain open and access to services will continue to be available on Friday.

Originally, classes held Monday, Wednesday and Friday were scheduled for 50 minutes, Bartley said. Now, students will attend classes for an hour and 15 minutes for two days. There were no labs scheduled for Fridays. They were held once a week.

“We will actually have as much or more instructional time for students than we did under the older model,” Bartley said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The scheduling change is to give students some relief from the rising tuition costs, Bartley said. He said students could save 20 percent in travel expenses as well as see savings in child care costs.

The college also will research other ways to save students money, such as weekend college, car-pooling and other modes of transportation. Recently, the college began a pilot study with Progress Energy to identify areas for energy cost reduction in order to counter rising operational cost, according to the press release.

Classes begin Aug. 20. The deadline for admission applications is Aug. 4 and open registration is Aug. 18.

For details on the college’s fall course schedule, visit its Web site, www.netc.edu.