EDUCATION

Communities move to secure local Ivy Tech sites

By Stephanie Wang
stephanie.wang@indystar.com

When Indiana communities learned last summer that Ivy Tech Community College might close some sites, local officials and campus administrators scurried into action.

In Tell City, economic development officials called meetings.

In Crawfordsville and Greensburg, administrators crunched enrollment projections.

In Princeton, local leaders started making a list of options.

Those responses could save the cash-crunched Ivy Tech from shuttering up to 20 of its more than 70 sites across the state. If communities can shoulder some or even all of Ivy Tech’s rental costs in leased locations, college officials say that could quash any immediate closures.

MORE COVERAGE:Ivy Tech says funding gap grows amid cost-cutting

“We’re optimistic that we won’t have to close any sites,” Ivy Tech executive vice president and chief operating officer Jeff Terp told the Indianapolis Star.

In many of the communities, Terp said, “they can’t afford to have us leave, so they’re trying to come up with some opportunities.”

In Tell City, for example, losing its Ivy Tech site would force students to drive 50 miles to the next nearest location in Evansville.

So the mayor and other leaders plan to meet this week to discuss ways to reduce Ivy Tech’s $61,000 rent and utility expenses in Tell City — perhaps, mayor Barbara Ewing said, even if it takes a substantial local investment.

“We recognize the weighing of that burden against the opportunity for the potential of development there at the Ivy Tech site,” she said. “It’s a real balancing act.”

A matter of convenience

For Zach Childers, Ivy Tech is close to home.

He used to attend Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, about 40 minutes from his home in Jamestown. He had to leave at 7 a.m. just to get into Indianapolis early enough to find a parking spot before his 10 a.m. class.

“It wasn’t fun at all,” said Childers, 18.

Within a semester, he left IUPUI and started classes at Ivy Tech’s nearby Crawfordsville location — a brand-new building in an industrial park.

“It’s just convenient to go here,” said Childers, who is studying elementary education. He counted affordability and small class sizes as pluses, too: “I definitely like it here better.”

But Crawfordsville site is running nearly a $1 million deficit in Ivy Tech’s five-year return-on-investment formula.

Enrollment there is expected to help even out the numbers within a few years, Terp said — but Ivy Tech is still examining the $144,000 lease.

The statewide community college system considered closing sites in the face of what it calls a multimillion-dollar funding shortfall. Blaming low state funding, Ivy Tech’s president says the college has had to defer costs totaling $83.1 million.

But site closures posed a particular conundrum. It raised the possibility of impeding college access to Hoosiers at a time when postsecondary attainment and workforce development form some of the state’s most critical priorities.

Re-evaluating leases

At Ivy Tech’s leased locations, tuition alone is meant to balance out the cost of rent, utilities and staffing.

At some locations, demand is so high that the college makes money as soon as it opens — like in Avon and Shelbyville. But at others, such as Rushville and Greenburg, the college loses money to stay in underserved areas, Terp said.

Some sites offer only a few classes, not full degrees. Others mostly offer night classes, dual credit or specific training options.

Ivy Tech teaches in strip malls and industrial parks, in a Boys and Girls Club, in high schools and community centers. It spends about $4 million in leases with cities, school districts, private owners and its own nonprofit fundraising arm, Ivy Tech Foundation, Terp said.

In recent return-on-investment calculations, Ivy Tech found 19 sites — including Crawfordsville, Tell City and Princeton — were losing money.

“We are looking at every single lease cost everywhere to see if we could re-evaluate,” Terp said. That includes sites that operate in the black.

In many other states, community colleges are county-based and benefit from local property taxes. That’s not the case here in Indiana.

Still, many communities have forged partnerships with Ivy Tech. That includes Crawfordsville, where the city and county spent $4.2 million to build a new, bigger site to lease back to Ivy Tech.

“The local communities have to show some willingness to participate in this funding if they want to attract Ivy Tech,” said state Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville.

At a minimum, Ivy Tech wants every student to have a location within a 30-minute drive, Terp said.

But if rent expenses can’t come down, Terp said the college may eventually explore other options when leases expire — including possibly closing a site by folding it in with a nearby location.

Indiana higher education commissioner Teresa Lubbers says it’s up to Ivy Tech to make sure its locations are “right-sized.”

“It is important that we have a significant reach with Ivy Tech campuses,” she said, “which I think we have. And there may be some possibility of consolidating them in a common-sense way.”

Ivy Tech also aims to increase enrollment at its sites, a joint effort with communities, to raise tuition revenue.

Across the country, community colleges have increasingly turned to tuition money to ease the pull-back of state and local funding, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

In southwestern Indiana, Princeton mayor Bob Hurst said even with other universities in the area, Ivy Tech plays a key role in his manufacturing-based city.

He said he is working with the county economic development director to see if the city could help reduce rent or find assistance through the redevelopment commission to keep Ivy Tech in town.

“I would hate to lose it,” Hurst said.

Call Star reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184. Follow her on Twitter: @stephaniewang.