Samuel Huist
Lisa O’Hearn
Timothy Bernard
Sinclair speaks
When jobs vanish and downsizing occurs, higher education is put into the spotlight.
“The economy is going through some unprecedented times and I think we all recognize that,” said Sinclair Community College Vice President Jeff Boudouris.
Schools such as Sinclair may face difficult challenges because of its reliance on state funding. Boudouris acknowledged the importance of state funding for Sinclair and the concerns it could face.
“We’re obviously very concerned about what state funding will entail in the next two years,” he said.
Sinclair has gone through some “lean years” with state funding beginning in 2000, according to Boudouris.
“We have had some small hits on our state cuts this year even,” Boudouris said. “Although, higher education at the state level has been largely protected from the brunt of a lot of those cuts because, again, the governor and the legislature view it as a priority for funding.”
Boudouris said higher education is firmly linked to the economy from a number of vantage points. Sinclair’s dependence on funds from Ohio-more than 40 percent of Sinclair’s budget comes from state resources-has been hit hard since the beginning of the decade, according to Boudouris.
“We are very, very concerned about the economy, obviously, and higher education as it is in all organizations,” Boudouris said.
Boudouris pointed out that some of today’s economic issues could be compared to the Great Depression.
“I don’t think any parts of our nation-to my understanding-has avoided in some regard the implications of this economy because there is such a dependency amongst us,” Boudoris said.
Boudouris said Sinclair recognized it couldn’t depend on state funding as they did in the 90’s. Also, the college went through a restructuring phase several years ago “to better align our organization to meet those needs in a more cost effective manner,” according to Boudouris.
“Our enrollment is growing which means we have more students to take care of,” Boudouris said. “Sinclair has already has a long track record of either freezing or reducing tuition.”
As the unemployment rate continues to move skyward, higher education anticipates growth in enrollment numbers.
“More students tend to come to community colleges when the economy is down,” Boudouris said. “We’ve positioned ourselves probably as good as we can to be able to weather this storm. But, how we weather it will be largely depended upon what happens next with our state funding and the other elements of our budget.
“Sinclair and other community colleges attempt to offer an opportunity to for students to come through without any dept at the end of their time here,” Boudouris said. “I would encourage students to be very careful and apply a more disciplined and planned approach to managing their finances so that college is truly a great experience for them that leads them to a fulfilling job without that dept burden kind of weighing them down as they come out of the gate.”