Editor’s Note: This article initially appeared on July 12 in the opinion section of the Raleigh News and Observer.
North Carolina’s community colleges (NCCCS) are all about efficiency and management innovation, according to system president Scott Ralls.
There’s a lot to his claim. The system’s expenditures per student are less than half of those at University of North Carolina schools. Plus, during the three years of the economic downturn, the NCCCS absorbed a 28 percent increase in enrollment, even though state appropriations rose by only 5.5 percent.
But now system officials are balking at a new efficiency measure, even though it might make more money available for improving academics at the state’s smallest community colleges without costing taxpayers or students a dime. They should embrace this proposal instead.
In 2009, the Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee of the North Carolina General Assembly ordered a legislative research unit, the Program Evaluation Division, to explore several cost-cutting measures for the community college system. The research team issued a report with two proposals at a June 28th committee meeting.
One proposal—to establish purchasing consortiums—would save a relatively small amount (initially $70,000 per year) by marshalling the community colleges’ collective bargaining power. Ralls readily accepted this proposal at the committee meeting. However, Mary Kirk, the president of Montgomery Community College and of the N.C. Association of Community College Presidents, objected to the proposal’s intent to centralize some purchasing functions.
The other—to reduce the number of colleges by merging small colleges—is much more promising. It would save roughly $5.1 million on an annual basis, largely due to the elimination of administrative positions made redundant by the mergers. Larger schools are generally more efficient to administer than small schools; the average amount spent on administration per student at schools with fewer than 3,000 is $983 but only $687 at larger campuses.
Of the 26 community colleges with low enrollments, 22 are within a 30-mile range of another school, making mergers geographically feasible According to the report’s principal researcher, Catherina Moga Bryant, merging those 22 schools with their most appropriate neighbors would include seven mergers between two small colleges, meaning there would be fifteen mergers in all.
The mergers also could create another $3.5 million in downstream savings, by joining small business centers or child-care centers, or sharing equipment and instructional resources.
But the mergers do not mean campuses would shut down. Rather, when two schools merge, the administrative offices will be located at the larger campus, while the smaller campus will continue to offer courses as a multi-campus center.
Ralls and Kirk vehemently attacked the merger proposal. Kirk wondered if it was indeed a “valid recommendation,” and said it will “devastate local communities.” She stated that the loss of tax revenue from the loss of administrative positions would have a negative impact on the local economies.
Yet, any such catastrophe is unlikely. As committee co-chair Senator Fletcher Hartsell suggested, the money saved could be put back into academics. This would not mean a loss of salaries for the small college communities, but a shift of salaries from administrators to teachers.
Moving resources from administration to academics is especially important, since many small schools have been struggling to keep up academically. Kirk acknowledged that her school can’t afford to pay teachers as much as a larger district like Wake Technical Community College does; if the potential $8.6 million saved by the proposal were scattered among the newly merged schools, it could certainly help improve academics.
And, as committee member Representative David Lewis added, the proposal didn’t even consider further savings in the academic area, such as the need for fewer deans and department heads. Such savings could also be plowed back into academics.
Ralls and Kirk cited other objections to the merger proposal: the gains aren’t worth the loss of community cohesion and identity, local donors will close their purses, and the multi-campus centers will offer second-rate educations. More likely, area residents will hardly notice the loss of administrative offices, and academics at the multi-campus centers will be bolstered by an infusion of the newly available money.
When resources are shifted from administration to the classroom, students gain. The Program Evaluation Division found some fat even in the very lean community college system, and the NCCCS should eagerly adopt this fine-tuning.