Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009

College plans for more cuts

JOHNSTON COUNTY — State budget cuts will likely hurt high school students looking for a leg up and people looking to become truckers.

The state budget, which cleared the General Assembly last week, takes at least $1.2 million from Johnston Community College. Through the Huskins program, JCC has offered college-credit courses to local high school students. But that program is losing $1 million this year, or almost all of its funding. “That will pretty much eliminate the program,” said Traci Ashley, JCC’s media-relations and public-information officer.

Huskins has served about 800 to 1,000 students a year, she said. The students are able to graduate high school with college credit for classes like psychology, public speaking and sociology.

“It’s most likely going to put them behind a little bit,” Ashley said.

Johnston Community College’s Truck Driver Training School will lose $200,000 to $350,000 for the coming school year, said Paul Jump, director of the program.

This comes at a time when the program’s popularity has been on the rise, fueled by high numbers of unemployed people. The cut means the college will likely limit enrollment in the trucking program this year, its administrators said.

“It’s been very popular, especially in these tough economic times,” Ashley said. “It’s a quick-training program, and it gives people the skills they need in a short amount of time.”

The $200,000 to $350,00 would come from the budget for buying and maintaining the program’s costly equipment. The trucking school also could lose funding for its summer classes.

About 300 students a year get truck-driver training at JCC, and the school has long had a waiting list for enrollment. With tighter funding, it will likely be even harder for prospective truckers to get their start in Johnston County.

In general, the inhospitable economy is driving more people to enroll at JCC. Already, early registration for fall enrollment is up 38.4 percent, or about 800 full-time students, compared to last year.

“We are in a tough time right now, but we are focusing on our students and making every arrangement to accommodate enrollment growth,” said Dr. David Johnson, the college’s president. “We’ve been able to preserve every faculty position at this point, and we will continue to work as hard as we can to stay open and accessible.”

On-campus registration was scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.