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There are 50,000 new community college students in Florida this year. The college presidents told governor Charlie Crist this morning that the colleges can’t face another year of increasing students without some cash from increased tuition. Lawmakers passed a tuition hike as part of a budget cutting package and it waiting for the governor’s signature. The governor told the presidents that if f he got a property tax cut from lawmakers soon, he would likely allow a 5 percent hike. “ I don’t want to burden them(the people) anymore. So if we have good success this week or even into the next week with property tax relief that the people will have an opportunity to vote upon, that makes it easier for me, it mitigates it if you will in terms of not burdening Florida families more”

Tallahassee Community College President Bill Law says the extra cash from a small hike will be necessary next year. “It’s as big burden. And we can handle it once and then square our shoulders. If we were to try to face that again, I’m not sure that we could do it again. Everybody tightening their belts the first time allowed us to bring on all these students with essentially all new funds. You can only tighten it so far. So that’s what we were asking for. The tuition increase would let us start planning for next year.”

A 5% tuition hike would be about 55 dollars a semester for the average student.