Tuition rising at Florence-Darlington Technical College
From Staff Reports
Tuition for Florence-Darlington Technical College students is rising 3.3 percent, or an additional $6 per credit hour.
“I think that the entire board always has reservations about increasing tuition fees,” board member Hood Temple said in a statement. “We have been through a journey over the last two years.”
“We’ve had significant revenue and cash-on-hand concerns,” he said. “Our current administration has done an outstanding job in reducing our operating budget from $43 million a few years ago to a projected budget of slightly below $36 million for the upcoming fiscal year. That’s a $7 million correction in our budget, which I think is impressive.”
The Florence-Darlington County Commission for Technical Education approved the tuition increase April 29.
Even with the increase, FDTC officials said, the school continues to boast the lowest tuition in the S.C. technical college system, which consists of 16 institutions.
With most of FDTC’s student fees being covered by the Pell grant, Lottery Tuition Assistance funding and other scholarship programs, FDTC students will need to incur very little debt in meeting expenses, school officials said.
“It would be financially irresponsible for us to offer a budget that does not meet the cost of the programs that we’re offering. We need to make sure that when we offer it, it’s reliable, it’s consistent and that it does balance,” said board member Leroy Robinson.
