Money issues on mind of College of Dupage leader

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College of DuPage President Robert Breuder

Updated: March 1, 2012 8:23AM

All things considered, the College of DuPage is doing pretty well, President Robert L. Breuder told a group of area legislators over breakfast Friday morning.

But financial challenges loom just over the horizon.

“There’s an awful lot going on at the moment,” Breuder told the group in a conference room in the college’s Culinary and Hospitality Center.

Breuder listed a series of accomplishments to the college’s credit, including adding 30 new certificate and 10 new degree programs, increasing the college’s reserves by more than $50 million and working on $500 million in campus improvements.

Breuder also said that even in troubled economic times, the college’s enrollment is down only slightly.

But the most significant accomplishment in his mind is the partnership the college has formed with four-year universities.

COD’s three-plus-one program allows students to obtain a bachelor’s degree from several local four-year institutions, including Lewis, Governors State, Roosevelt and Benedictine universities while at COD.

Breuder stressed that the discount to the student came to about 40 percent of the normal price of a four-year degree.

“We want to keep them here,” he said. “It’s better for DuPage County ... we have a better chance of employing them here.”

But as much good news as there is to report from COD, Breuder didn’t sugarcoat potential problems lurking just around the corner for the largest community college in Illinois.

First, there is the problem of the state of Illinois and its statutory responsibility to fund community college at one-third of the cost of operations. The state has made a habit of being late with its payments the last few years. Added to the state’s revenue problem are the Illinois property tax cap limiting local revenue and the statutory requirement to limit tuition to one-third its per-capita operating expenses.

Tuition is currently $132 per semester hour, and without additional revenue the college may be faced with either significantly raising tuition or making program cutbacks in the near future.

Then there is the state’s well-know problem with unfunded pensions. Illinois currently contributes $17 million to COD for pensions and Brueder warned that if the state tries to put the full responsibility on community colleges the effects could be devastating.

Breuder noted some of the costs of operating non-academic programs, among them WDCB radio ($750,000), the McAninch Performing Arts Center ($500,000) and COD athletic programs ($400,000 to $500,000), and pointed out how some community colleges had recently decided to eliminate their football programs.

Breuder said that if similar cuts were made at COD, “you wouldn’t want to be around here ... we have to deal with that internally.”

Other topics raised at the event included the possibility of dormitories complementing community colleges in the future, especially with what could be a trend toward earning four-year degrees at College of DuPage.

State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) urged college officials to make it clear to the public that future dorms would not be funded by taxpayer dollars.

State Sen. Carole Pankau (R-Bloomingdale) asked about online education at COD.

“Besides the University of Illinois, COD is the biggest producer of online education in the state,” Breuder said. “No one else even comes close.”