By Staff
The Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees approved a feasibility study to explore the possibility of on-campus student housing, accepted gifts and grants and conducted other business during a regularly scheduled meeting for November held on Tuesday, Dec. 12, on the Dowagiac campus.
Trustees approved the administrative recommendation to explore the feasibility of on-campus student housing. The study will determine whether such a facility could be built and operated entirely with user fees, with no use of tax dollars.
According to SMC President Dr. David Mathews, there are three compelling reasons for undertaking this analysis at this time.
"First, there is the market demand. It appears that there may be a large number of local and regional students in the college's service area who would be interested in attending SMC if there were on-campus housing. Many potential students tell us that housing is the key to their decision about where they attend college. One goal of the study will be to quantify this need." explained Mathews. "Several of Michigan's community colleges that have recently added student housing have found that housing attracted many local students who otherwise would have gone away to a university and had to pay a much higher tuition rate. If SMC doesn't offer housing, then the college may be losing an entire group of students who may have otherwise considered SMC as an option.
"Second, the college needs additional revenue. A drastic reduction in state funding over the past five years has made it imperative that the college generate more tuition revenue," continued Mathews. "So we ask ourselves, 'What more can SMC do to grow?' One answer is adding student housing. Southwestern Michigan College has put all the other pieces of the puzzle together when it comes to a quality education. By objective data, SMC's student success rate, across the board, is in the top 10 percent in the nation. One example is nursing. Typically SMC's nursing licensure pass rate is 100 percent. SMC's student activities are outstanding. Also, through partnerships with Western Michigan University, Ferris State University and Bethel College, SMC now offers eight bachelor's degrees on our campuses. The piece that possibly would leverage all of these strengths to attract more students is on-campus student housing.
"Third, there is the issue of affordable access to a full college experience. Skyrocketing costs at the universities are putting a residential college experience out of the reach of many families," Mathews said. "Because SMC's tuition is less than half, or even one-third, of that at state universities, on-campus housing could provide students with an affordable, complete college-life experience right here."
Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Fred L. Mathews said, "We want to explore the possibility of this project to see if it can be entirely funded on its own without the use of any tax dollars. That is critical. This will help the Board of Trustees to come to an informed decision to move forward or not." "There are other numerous, necessary improvements that must be made to existing facilities," said Chairman Mathews.
"These must come out of the college's general fund budget. Student housing, however, is a unique facilities project because it has a chance to be self-funding, and therefore might be possible to build without putting pressure on the college's limited existing resources. In fact, student housing which would attract more new students could provide additional revenue for the college. The feasibility study is intended to give us that information."
In his president's report, Dr. David M. Mathews updated trustees regarding current and upcoming campus events
This is the last chance to see the museum exhibit "Keepers of the Fire: The Potawatomi Nation."
The exhibit will be open to the public until Dec. 22. This exhibit is a collaborative effort with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians.