Community college crisis prompts review in Idaho

BOISE – Boise is the largest metropolitan area in the country without a community college, a fact that has business recruiters concerned and Boise State University planning and hoping to open one in nearby Nampa.

Boise’s need has begun to spark a wholesale reconsideration of Idaho’s community college system, which is supposed to serve the state but has only two community colleges. Legislation is in the works, and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is looking at the issue.

Idaho has one of the lowest rates in the nation for its high school graduates going on to any form of higher education – just 44.8 percent did so in 2000, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which ranks Idaho among the bottom half-dozen states.

But the prospect of adding community colleges raises politically charged funding issues. State lawmakers from North Idaho and the Twin Falls area have been alarmed about the idea of a new community college opening without something North Idaho College (NIC) and the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) long have had – local property tax support. That has raised questions about the BSU plan, the role of property taxes and local control, and just what kind of community college system Idaho should have.

There’s precedent for going without local taxes. After eastern Idaho residents twice rejected property taxes for a community college there, they got Eastern Idaho Technical College (EITC) – a fully state-funded, two-year college in Idaho Falls.

“It would be way more equitable, way more equitable if CSI and NIC were funded a little less on the backs of the property owners,” said Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, co-chairwoman of the Legislature’s joint budget committee.

Only three counties in Idaho collect property taxes to fund local colleges – Kootenai County for NIC, and Twin Falls and Jerome counties for CSI.

Many say that system’s just not fair, and Kempthorne has been looking into the issue. He wouldn’t say last week exactly where he’s heading – “I’m not going to go into that now, that’s State of the State stuff,” he said – but he made it clear he’s concerned.

“I’m looking at it, all aspects,” Kempthorne said. “I’ve been talking to people, I’ve been in all regions of the state. I don’t know what the conclusion will be, but it’s something I’m very interested in.”

Meanwhile, the fast-growing Boise Valley has so many students in need of the affordable, accessible education offered by a community college that one in Oregon, Treasure Valley Community College, has opened a small branch campus in Caldwell – and is serving more than 700 Idaho students.

Students there pay no out-of-state tuition, although those completing two-year degrees still have to take about a fifth of their credits on the main campus in Ontario, Ore., about 30 miles away.

Bruce Schultz, director of the TVCC Caldwell campus, welcomes BSU’s plan to open a community college in the same county where his college has expanded. “You could have community colleges stretched across the entirety of Southern Idaho, and we would not even begin to meet the need,” he said. “Idaho is the Bangladesh of community colleges – we are starving for them. There’s not a state in the union, frankly, that has the dearth of two-year schools.”

Community colleges tend to be the most accessible piece of the college and university system, offering open enrollment, low prices, and classes designed to fit the needs of the community, from job training to courses that allow students to transfer to a university to earn four-year degrees.

But in Idaho, the community college “mission” is simply assigned to three four-year institutions in much of the state. Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, BSU, and Idaho State University in Pocatello are supposed to take care of community college needs in their areas.

That’s becoming increasingly difficult for BSU, which President Bob Kustra said has come far from its original junior-college roots and is becoming a major metropolitan research university. It still houses the Selland College of Applied Technology, a two-year school, but the students enrolled there must pay full university tuition and fees, which can be two to three times that of two-year schools.

Plus, BSU, pinched by student growth and constrained state funding, doesn’t have open enrollment and space is getting cramped on its main campus. This year, it turned away 900 students.

“As we have transformed ourselves into a different kind of university, the question becomes, where do these students who are looking for more affordability and better access go? In every other area of the country that I can think of, that answer is a community college,” Kustra said.

The Selland College enrolls 1,200 students in classes like welding, bookkeeping and diesel mechanics, but Kustra said, “We should be serving seven times the number of students.”

BSU hopes to move the Selland College to its fledgling Canyon County campus and have it form the core of a new community college to serve the entire Treasure Valley. The community college also would offer classes across the valley, possibly in high school classrooms after hours.

BSU is supposed to serve the community college needs for 10 counties across the region. If a property tax were imposed across that entire area, with the high tax base, it would likely be so small “the average homeowner would hardly notice it,” Kustra said. But Idaho is in the midst of a property tax revolt, and voters may be unlikely to support any new venture that involves additional taxes.

“I’m just stating the obvious,” Kustra said.

Kustra said the property tax question isn’t for him to decide. “I really think the next step in the community college movement in Idaho is for the state’s leadership to address the issues, and I’m confident that’s going to happen,” he said. “I know the governor has an interest in a community college in southwestern Idaho. I think we’re going to see some leadership from his office on the subject.”

He added, “He wants to make sure the solution is a statewide solution.”

Rep. Ann Rydalch, R-Idaho Falls, is working on a bill to create a statewide community college system with full state funding, using state tax funds to replace the $9.2 million in property taxes that College of Southern Idaho and North Idaho College now collect. But she’s identified no particular source for that funding, nor for additional funds to make Eastern Idaho Technical College and a new Canyon County college part of the system.

Some worry that a key piece of what makes NIC and CSI work – their responsiveness to their communities – would be lost if the local property tax goes away. Along with their tax bills, local residents get local control – they elect a board that oversees the college, rather than deferring to the state Board of Education, which oversees the fully state-funded institutions.

“If you lose that because you don’t have a funding mechanism that requires it, you lose the ability to move nimbly and react to local situations and the needs of the community,” said Sue Thilo of Coeur d’Alene, a member of the state Board of Education and a longtime supporter of NIC. “The difficulty is, because community colleges serve such a great purpose, I would like to see the system expanded. It’s unfortunate that our state only has two. So we do need to figure out a way to accommodate the needs across the state that will not take away from the value of a community college.”

Rydalch said she thinks EITC has maintained plenty of local control by having an appointed advisory board.

Kent Probst, NIC spokesman, said the state could opt to replace the property tax funding but keep the local elected boards. “We want to be a part of the discussion, but we’re not out to reject out of hand any proposal that comes down the pike,” he said. “It’s what’s best for the state of Idaho and its citizens.”

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said, “Both NIC and CSI have been real partners in economic development. Part of that is because they can get response from a local board to specific needs. The response from the state board is not as rapid.”

Both schools have quickly set up training programs to serve major new employers coming to town – a factor that helped land the businesses in the first place.

But Goedde also noted that switching over to full state funding would mean property tax relief. “In the case of Kootenai County, that would take $5.5 million out of our property tax.”