Strapped colleges resort to fee hikes

“To be honest, we’re anticipating this is the new normal, though I hate to say that,’’ said Michael Gross, Cape Cod Community College spokesman, who has worked there for 16 years. “There’s just no way that we can operate any other way.’’

Gross said Cape Cod, based in West Barnstable, will raise its fees from $127 per credit hour to $137 per credit hour to help make up a budget shortfall of about $1.3 million, including nearly $500,000 in lost federal funds. Like other colleges and universities, Cape Cod is also dipping into rainy-day funds and continuing to cut costs.

In addition to the loss of federal funding, many state public institutions are facing old buildings in need of renovation, too few classrooms and labs, and rapidly increasing enrollment.

Although colleges and universities have cut back on everything from staff to printing paper over the past few years, many must keep the faculty the same size or even hire more instructors to meet student demand, officials said.

The fees, then, are likely to keep rising.

‘It’s unfortunately becoming a pattern and unless something dramatic happens, I think we will continue to move closer and closer to being virtually privatized,’’ said Michael Shanley, Fitchburg State University spokesman. “It certainly is a disturbing trend.’’

The 13.5 percent fee increase that Bristol Community College in Fall Riv er will charge students next year — nearly five times the current New England inflation rate of 2.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — came about through what spokeswoman Sally Cameron called a “perfect storm’’ of events.

Last year, Bristol announced that it would not raise fees at all in a bid to keep classes affordable during the recession. The news was greeted with fanfare: Governor Deval Patrick even came down for the announcement.

But this year, the federal stimulus money that once enabled Bristol to forgo a fee increase is gone.