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Pulaski Tech Increases Costs to Students After Losing Millage Tax Election

Pulaski Technical College - North Little Rock Campus
pulaskitech.edu

Pulaski Technical College is raising tuition fees after losing a millage tax election by a wide margin earlier in March. Students can expect the cost of attendance to rise by nearly 13 percent.

The college’s president, Margaret Ellibee, said without local millage, sales or property tax collections she is concerned about the capacity for growth.

“We're worried when our budget has not grown and will not grow in the futur. We took a 20 percent budget cut last year and this general fee that was implemented will get us right back to about even,” said Ellibee.

Ellibee, said without revenue from a millage tax new funding streams are needed just to maintain operations.

“That was offering a sustained funding stream over time. That’s an option we don’t have right now. We have state money coming in through the higher ed funding formula, but Pulaski Tech receives about 53 percent of what the funding formula says that we need to get. The formula for our college and other two year colleges in the state are underfunded and with that we have to rely on tuition and fees,” said Ellibee.

Although students can use financial aid to pay for increased fees Ellibee said the college also lost about 1,500 students last year because of declining federal aid. Pulaski Tech has nearly 10,000 students.

Jacob Kauffman is a former news anchor and reporter for KUAR.
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