University enrollment, tuition hit upper limits, officials say
Over the past few years, USC has weathered a deep recession and grown rapidly, and now, administrators say, it faces a number of questions.
With space for classrooms, labs and dorm rooms running low, there’s not much room to grow the student body, and USC’s raised tuition about as much as it can, according to Chief Financial Officer Ed Walton.
Last year, tuition for in-state students went up 3.15 percent, the smallest increase in the last decade, and in 2011, USC President Harris Pastides promised that the size of incoming freshman classes wouldn’t grow.
With the onset of the Great Recession, USC grew both to make up for dwindling support from the state government, Walton wrote in an email response.
In the 2008-09 academic year, 21 percent of the USC system’s budget came from taxpayer funds; this year, just 10.2 percent did, according to university budget documents. And the university isn’t banking on getting that money back, according to Walton.
That’s leading USC to a financial plateau, meaning revenue will likely hold steady over the coming years and spending won’t grow significantly, either.
It’s a trend that’s not unique to the university, Pastides said, and other colleges, especially private schools, have been hit harder over the past few years.
How the university will return to faster growth — if it does — is one of a series of questions it will face over the next year, Pastides said. But, he added, “that’s an if.”
“Nothing says we have to grow faster,” Walton wrote. “We do have to manage growth and prioritize more now than ever before.”
But if unexpected and significant costs arose or the economy saw another downturn, the results could be “punishing,” according to Walton.
As the university moves forward, it’ll have to think through whether there’s more need for higher education in South Carolina or if it has enough colleges, Pastides said.
And in the next few years, administrators appear content to stay put.
“I have neither new resources nor cost reductions on the planning table at this time,” Walton wrote.
Still, the university is mulling a few new revenue streams, Pastides said.
Enrolling more international students and providing more executive and leadership training packages to businesses would bring in extra cash, he said, and the Palmetto College could be another revenue driver, too.
It’ll likely focus on enrolling South Carolina students over its first few years, Pastides said, but it could appeal to an out-of-state or international market later on.
“You need to crawl before you walk,” he said.
The addition of a third semester during the summer — a program dubbed “On Your Time” — could help to make more use of USC’s infrastructure year-round and bring in more money in the process, according to Walton.
In the last year, USC has explored other ways of growing its infrastructure, as it’s moving forward on a proposed public-private partnership to build a new residence hall near the Colonial Life Arena.
Pastides said he expected the project would begin taking bids in the first months of the year.
And, he said, the discussions that happen over the next year will have ripple effects that influence the university years down the road.
“These are things that’ll happen once all of you are gone,” Pastides said.