CCU, HGTC face ban on building projects

The state's Budget and Control Board could decide this week whether to place a moratorium on new building projects on public college and university campuses - including Coastal Carolina University and Horry-Georgetown Technical College - as a way to reduce the cost of tuition.

Gov. Mark Sanford is holding a Higher Education Summit on Tuesday, focusing on the need to turn around the soaring cost of college education.

The moratorium will be one of the topics discussed at the meeting at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, said Sanford spokesman Ben Fox.

The effect of the Budget and Control Board's decision on Grand Strand colleges and universities will depend on the level of moratorium the board approves. If the moratorium extends to all projects that have not been bid and contracted, several projects at Coastal Carolina University could be affected.

The board's discussion could influence whether the moratorium is included on the agenda of the Budget and Control Board's meeting Wednesday and how members of that group would define and implement it, Fox said. Four of the five members of the board have said they are open to a discussion on a moratorium.

Several college and university leaders, however, said lack of state support, not costly construction projects, is driving up the cost of a college education.

Fox said reactions to the summit so far have been "passionate and wide."

CCU and Horry-Georgetown Technical College are anxious about the decision because it could mean a delay in the ability to use funding from the 1-cent local sales tax for education capital improvements passed in 2008. The tax expires in 15 years, and the funding is put into a specific account until its needed. The tax revenues can also be used to pay down debt on existing construction projects.

CCU is quickly outgrowing its physical imprint, accepting the largest freshman class this year with more than 2,000 students.

Overall, the college has almost doubled in size in the past decade. There are four projects in the advanced stages of the Budget and Control Board approval, including the student convocation center, which has been bid and is under contract for construction.

"We have one project under construction now, and we assume that would not be affected," said Will Garland, senior vice president for finance and administration at CCU. "We have three that are in the process and have construction budgets approved and those should be out for bid in October. If the moratorium affects all buildings not under contract, then those would be caught in that."

Those projects in the second stage of planning, which also requires a substantial amount of money for site work and architectural planning, include the students library expansion, the Swain science annex and the central HVAC building.

Without more room in the science building, Garland said, the university would have to limit the size of its freshman classes.

"We simply don't have the space for labs," he said. "We've done everything we can to use the space we have for science labs. We've extended hours at the existing center, we've built more classrooms at a warehouse at the Atlantic Center ... borrowed space from [HGTC] for classes. There's just not much else we can do."

Other buildings are also in the talking stages, including new buildings to house the public safety department and to expand academic offices, and classroom space to accommodate for student growth - a major source of revenue for the university.

At Horry-Georgetown Technical College, three buildings are in the midst of the Budget and Control Board approval process, including renovations to Building 400 for the Early College High School program; Building 300, which houses the engineering and agricultural programs; and an expansion at the Spier Health Sciences building that slated to hold an indigent dental clinic.

Building 400 and the Spier expansion have passed the entire state process, said Harold Hawley, vice president for business and financial affairs at HGTC.

"We don't anticipate those being affected," he said. "We also have one project that will require one more approval and visit to the board, which is happening Wednesday. We're hoping that project will also be approved and OK."

Sanford, who is in his final months as the state's governor, has tried in the past to revamp the state's higher education system including proposing that the state create a board of regents to govern its colleges and schools and limit tuition increases to the Higher Education Price Index - an inflation rate specific to colleges and universities.

But, Fox said, he has not been successful in those endeavors.

The governor hopes that the summit would "spur quality legislation in the next session," Fox said.

Spokesmen from the state's largest public colleges and universities said representatives from their schools would attend the summit, which is open to the public and will include time for discussion on many aspects of higher education.

The University of South Carolina added a page to its website on the summit, which includes an explanation of issues school officials think contribute to the cost of higher education.

USC spokeswoman Margaret Lamb said the university lost $105 million, or 47 percent of its state funding, in the past two years, which contributed to a 6.9 percent tuition jump for the 2010-2011 school year.

State funding for higher education is low in South Carolina. The level at which it funds its universities falls second from the bottom among the 16 Southern states. Only West Virginia contributes less to its colleges, according the Southern Regional Education Board, a group that represents those states.

And, tuition at South Carolina's public four-year schools is the highest in the South. While weak state support is one reason why in-state tuition is twice that of neighboring states, it's only part of the answer.

Institutions also compete with one another for applicants and prestige, and one way they do that is by improving facilities and amenities for students.

Lamb said the university hasn't received any money from the state for building projects since the 1999-2000 fiscal year. Most construction projects are paid for with private money, athletics revenue, or county or federal funds, she said.

Ray Greenberg, president of the Medical University of South Carolina, said the university has some renovation projects under development, and delays in those projects might cause problems in those buildings. He also said a project to renovate research space for microbiology and immunology has a major federal stimulus grant, which could be lost if a building moratorium is put in place.

State Treasurer Converse Chellis, the only member of the Budget and Control Board opposed to the moratorium, said some building projects are necessary. Approving a moratorium would put those projects at risk, he said.

"I've always looked at each project individually," Chellis said. "One statement doesn't fit all."