Community College Report Tells of Financial Troubles - Phil Prazan, WOI

Over the past ten years state funding for community colleges has gone down by 21%, forcing students to foot much of the bill. The gap between what the state pays and what the students pay has greatly increased in the past few years. So community colleges had to get creative in spreading their thin budgets around. "We hope these reports provide the info so people can have a dialogue," says Charles Bruner from the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, one of the authors of the bill. The report shows that universities get funding in a number of ways: either from the state and federal government, from tuition and fees, or from donors, sporting events and apparel. But many community colleges don't have sports programs or a large donor base.