College of Charleston seeks tuition mitigation, new business school gift draws community concerns about dorm site

Dr. Joseph Hsu, president of the College of Charleston, told the House Ways and Means Higher Education Budget Subcommittee the college seeks modest recurring funds and capital support to meet enrollment demand and reduce long-term costs. He said the college expects not to raise in-state tuition for a sixth consecutive year and requested $4,600,000 in recurring tuition-mitigation funding.

Hsu described several priorities: the EPIC Scholars program (which covers roughly 75 percent of costs for many South Carolina students); partnerships with the Medical University of South Carolina on cancer-biology research and a proposed biomedical-engineering collaboration; and support for the Joe Riley Center for Livable Communities, which Hsu described as the state’s only center of its kind for supporting local government and which is currently funded philanthropically.

The college also announced a major private gift: a centrally located parcel at Market Street and East Bay earmarked by the donor for a new business school. Hsu said the planned ~100,000-square-foot facility would allow the college to pull back from leased space that now costs more than $2,000,000 a year and could be financed by the long-term savings of consolidation, calling it "once in a generation." He added the business school has seen strong demand (Hsu said business school enrollment grew about 70 percent over five years).

Committee members asked detailed questions about the gift and related campus plans. Representative Scott Warner asked whether the donor-designated parcel could be swapped to address a proposed dormitory and raised constituent concerns that a proposed residence hall might be sited on land containing suspected graves, including possible burials of enslaved and poor white people. Hsu said the donor’s agreement currently specifies the property for the business school and that the college has been engaging stakeholders and community members about the dormitory site.

Members also pressed Hsu on academic freedom and discipline incidents related to recent national controversies; Hsu said the college had handled only minor incidents through internal disciplinary processes and had not experienced events that rose to the level of forcible removal or incitement. Hsu acknowledged the college does not heavily rely on international students (about 2 percent) and noted H-1B sponsorship is less frequent because the college lacks the budget to pay sponsorship fees, which could constrain faculty recruitment.

On admissions and revenue, Hsu said in-state applications rose modestly while out-of-state applications jumped, and the college admits roughly 85 percent of qualified in-state applicants. He characterized nonresident students as a "brain import" and said about 60 percent of out-of-state graduates remain in South Carolina; he provided revenue examples: in-state students paid about $3,500 on average in tuition last fall and nonresident students paid about $25,000 each, which Hsu said generated roughly $35,000,000 in out-of-state tuition revenue.

Next steps: Members thanked Hsu and indicated they would consider the college’s requests as part of the subcommittee’s budget process. The hearing adjourned with the committee to reconvene later for additional presenters.