Higher education in central Utah is about to take a new turn as the College of Eastern Utah and Southeast Applied Technology College merge to form a single community college.

The merger got the nod from the state Board of Regents Thursday despite concerns from technical education leaders that career education may get lost in the mix.

"Making SEATC a part of a local college is a mistake," said Doug Holmes, acting chairman of Utah's College of Applied Technology Board of Trustees. "If you get rid of the applied technology college in Price, the business industries in that area are going to suffer. If there's no jobs, the students are going to suffer."

SEATC started along with nine other applied technology schools in 2001, but Higher Education Commissioner Rich Kendell said the school is duplicating many of the programs already at CEU. That redundancy is leaving both schools competing for enrollments. CEU, for example, lost about 8 percent of its enrollment this year.

"This is a challenged part of the state. The need is real, but the population is in decline and the money is tight," Kendell said.

The regents' vote does give UCAT leaders some time to get out of the merger, allowing them to come up with an alternative collaboration plan by the end of the year.

The merger, Kendell said, will allow both schools to cut costs. Without it, Kendell said, CEU is in danger of having to become a junior college instead of a comprehensive community college.

"There's not enough money to make this work. No business would be run this way, " said Kendell, who equated the situation to a company appointing two CEOs.

Miles Nelson, campus president of the SEATC, said he's worried the unique mission of the technical college will be gobbled up by CEU. In addition, he said the students of the technical school are so different — both in age and level of education — that some students may be lost in the transfer.

"These clientele deserve these services as much or more than the traditional student," he said.

In other action Thursday, the Board of Regents:

• Approved a $650 million budget request for the upcoming legislative session, including a tentative 3.3 percent base tuition increase. Although that tuition figure will likely change depending on final legislative decisions, higher education's new requests this year total roughly $67 million.

"This is an ambitious budget, we are anticipating real prosperity in the state of Utah," Kendell said.

About $7.5 million in retention funds for key faculty and staff again tops higher education's priority list. Leaders asked for the funds last year to help universities hold onto top faculty, but the item didn't make the state's final budget.

"It will give them an opportunity to go to those individuals who are most at risk and play critical roles in our institution," Kendell said. "It will give them some bargaining power."

• Approved a new downtown location for the Salt Lake Community College downtown campus. The college will lease two floors of an office building at 241 E. 400 South.

The 21,000 square feet of classroom space will allow the school to keep its downtown presence without piling on the debt burden of its former larger campus.

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