Great Basin College tuition will increase this year, 2015, 2016 and 2017 for a total hike of 16 percent.
Rather than getting that news in a memo or through the media, GBC students were invited to attend a student forum held in Elko on Feb. 14.
The event featured GBC President Mark Curtis and Crystal Abba, Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs for all Nevada colleges and universities.
The forum had interactive video, enabling students in Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Pahrump and Ely to watch the event live. Around six Battle Mountain GBC students tuned into the conference from a classroom at the Battle Mountain center, said Ami Rogers, GBC Battle Mountain Center coordinator, who was unable to attend.
"It was a pretty good turnout for our center and it showed that our students are concerned about the tuition hikes," Rogers said. "I feel that the student government representatives have done a good job of keeping our students informed on the pending tuition hikes."
Winnemucca GBC student Manuel Magana, 23, who attended the conference in Elko, said he wasn't too concerned about the tuition increases for his own sake - he's a veteran and gets tuition assistance. But he said it may be tougher on other students
"Not everybody has that comfort zone," he said.
"They told us where the tuition will go and that more money is needed to make sure academics isn't sacrificed," said Magana.
Two student government representatives, Winnemucca GBC Student Senators, Marisela Ramirez and Yezenia Poulsen also attended the forum. Afterward, they said how much they appreciated the college administration taking the case for tuition hikes straight to the students.
"They gave us a lot of GBC information; they explained the budget cuts and the ways that GBC is different from other colleges," said Ramirez. "They were concerned with how students are going to pay the additional tuition; they talked about affordability. They asked, with the increases - who will we be leaving out."
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Poulsen said Abba said tuition is going up in every state college and university, although the tuition hikes won't hit UNR until 2017. Abba is traveling all over the state with Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Klaich to talk to each college and university.
At the Student Forum, Curtis and Abba stressed GBC leadership had cut as much as they could on their end. Those cuts have included 56 of the total of 250 GBC faculty members. The only way to forestall more cuts, according to Curtis, was to raise tuition.
Students were told at the forum that the increases would not be larger than announced over the next four years, "unless extreme economic circumstances," left no other choice.
Battle Mountain Bugle staff writer Heather Hill contributed to this article.[[In-content Ad]]
