On Tuesday, January 25th, President Benson addressed the S.C. House Subcommittee on Higher Education. President Benson spoke about the College’s accessibility and affordability.

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to talk with you about the College of Charleston, and, more generally, about higher education in South Carolina.

When I spoke to this subcommittee last year, I discussed the College’s new 10-year Strategic Plan in some detail.

For the benefit of your subcommittee’s new members, I have provided booklets that summarize the plan’s major components.

The plan will serve as the College’s blueprint for the rest of this decade.

This plan reflects the College’s commitment to nurture, support, and take advantage of Charleston’s unique assets. And to use those assets to differentiate the College from all other universities. This plan reflects our commitment to maintain and strengthen high quality academic and student life offerings for which we have already gained national recognition. Parade Magazine, for example, recently named the College of Charleston one of the top seven small state universities in the country.

Accessibility and Affordability

But my purpose today is not to brag about the College. I get plenty of opportunities to do that.

Rather, during this period of great economic uncertainty, I believe it is important that we continue to discuss the critical importance of our public colleges and universities. They are unquestionably the key to our state’s long-term economic, social, and cultural health.

South Carolinians need and deserve access to advanced education at affordable costs. We are proud that the College is both accessible and affordable to the citizens of our state.

With roughly 11,800 undergraduate and graduate students, the College of Charleston is the 3rd largest university in South Carolina.

We accept all qualified South Carolina students who apply to the College. And nearly 70% of all South Carolinians who apply qualify and are accepted. Those who do not qualify can be accepted if they attend a technical college for one or two years and perform well.

The upshot of this is that out-of-state students do not displace South Carolina students at the College of Charleston. If they qualify, they are accepted, period.

As for affordability, the College ranks 6th highest for in-state tuition among our state’s four year public colleges and universities.

Furthermore, virtually every in-state freshman at the College receives some type of state aid.

Last year, the average in-state freshman at the College received $5,063 in state aid.

When federal and institutional financial aid are included, that average in-state student receives a total of $7,542 in financial aid. Which means his or her out-of-pocket tuition cost was a remarkably affordable $2,424 for an entire academic year!

As for next year, we are well aware of the dire budget situation that you and your colleagues in the General Assembly must deal with.

You have no choice – and we all know that – serious cuts must be made. And the quality of our institutions will suffer. But there are things that you can do to help us maintain access and affordability even with our lower state appropriations.

How You Can Help Us

Before I explain what I mean, let me remind you of the three primary levers that the trustees of all state universities use to generate essential operating revenue. The three levers are enrollment, tuition, and the mix of in-state and out-of-state students.

Unlike many other universities in the state, the College of Charleston is unable to pull the enrollment lever to generate additional revenue. We are landlocked in the Historical District of Charleston, surrounded by historic neighborhoods and vital business corridors.

The enrollment lever is not an option.

That leaves tuition and adjustments to the in-state/out-of-state student mix as our two potential levers. But tuition was capped this year by the Budget and Control Board and may be next year as well. And there has been talk of setting caps on the out-of-state students. Should that occur, our trustees would have exactly zero levers to work with. No means of generating needed operating funds. Either of these caps would be disastrous for our higher education system – and by extension, our state.

So, back to what you can do for us. I have three simple requests.

Don’t cap tuition. Don’t cap out-of-state enrollment. But do support regulatory relief for higher education.

If our colleges and universities lose their ability to set tuition – that is, to set price in line with the quality of the products and services we offer and comparable to our peer institutions, we will be resigned to a future of mediocrity. In the business world, we’d say that differently. We’d be bankrupt and out of business.

Have faith in our university trustees, most of whom you appoint. They understand the needs and unique missions of their respective institutions and will do what’s right by the people of South Carolina.

Furthermore, a tuition cap based on an across-the-board percentage increase disproportionately penalizes institutions with lower tuition rates while favoring institutions with higher tuition. Because the playing field isn’t level, a one-size-fits-all approach yields serious unintended consequences.

A tuition cap also punishes institutions that receive relatively little state support. South Carolina supports its universities at very different levels, ranging from a low of 6.27 percent of the budget to a high of 21.25 percent. The College of Charleston falls at 8.6 percent, near the bottom of that range. Again, the different levels of state support result in unintended consequences from a tuition cap: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. With respect to out-of-state enrollment, remember that out-of-state students subsidize instate students. At the College of Charleston each in-state student benefits from a roughly $5,000 subsidy. Our in-state students would be hurt by caps on out-of-state students.

Another Unintended Consequence

And finally, with respect to regulatory relief, please untie our hands. We are bound in red tape that causes us to be less efficient and spend more money than necessary to educate our students.

We greatly appreciated the support from you and your colleagues in the House last year for the regulatory relief bill for higher education. We ask that you keep pushing for passage of this critical legislation. It will make our universities more self-sufficient and less dependent on government, exactly the principles on which this great state and this country were founded.

Closing

Our universities are the solution, not the problem. They are the linchpin for economic development, high-tech innovation, scientific research, job creation, an improved K–12 system, and a high quality of life. We can’t afford to let higher education slip backward.

Thank you for your attention. I’m happy to answer your questions.