New bill aims to increase community college tuition cap

BOISE — An Idaho House committee has passed a bill that would increase the cap on community college tuition.

The House Education Committee on Monday passed HB 79, which would increase tuition caps from $2,500 to $3,250 per year for full-time students taking regular coursework through Idaho community colleges.

Bill presenter Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, cited rising costs of operation and hiring difficulty at community colleges as key issues the bill is meant to address.

“When the state is funding the community Career Technical Education programs … that doesn’t support any of the regular staff, and so they are reliant on tuition or local taxes somehow or other to make that up,” Clow said. “This is a great step to make sure that if they’re giving raises to their Career Technical staff that they can do that to the rest of their staff as well.”

Idaho code dictates that tuition cannot increase more than 10% in a given year, which the bill adheres to.

“We don’t expect them to average more than a 5% increase in the first year,” Clow said.

Community colleges have increased in popularity in Idaho, with State Board of Education data reporting a 6% enrollment increase over one year as of Fall 2024, compared to a 3% increase at four-year colleges.

The impact of the Launch grant program was also mentioned in later comments from community college representatives. The program provides grants to graduating high school seniors pursuing in-demand careers for either higher-education tuition or workforce training.

“Last fall, we believe largely due to Launch, we experienced an increase of 20% in the size of our freshman class,” said College of Southern Idaho President Dean Fisher. “That’s causing capacity issues. There’s been that increase in fall of ’21 that I described and now a surge as a result of Launch.”

Very little discussion was had, with no public testimony. Rep. Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome, said he agreed with the bill, and has observed difficulties faced by community colleges.

“The community colleges are caught in somewhat of a bind,” Nelsen said. “As things inflate, simply to be able to hire people is quite a challenge for them. I not only support this, I think it needs to happen.”

The bill was unanimously passed and now heads to the House floor for further consideration.

Schwicht may be contacted at newsroom@idahopress.com.