Commuters face $1.5 million gas bill
By Michael H. Miller, Special to The Beacon
With gasoline prices hovering near $4 per gallon, Northeast students, faculty and staff will feel the pinch in their pocketbooks during the fall semester.
Commuters to NEMCC will shell out close to $1.5 million in gasoline costs alone during the 16-week fall semester.
Northeast has room for 826 students on campus in its five dormitories but with an estimated enrollment of 3,500 that leaves some 2,674 students commuting to campus every day.
Add in the approximately 250 faculty and staff for the college and the number hits 2,924 commuters traveling the streets of Booneville on any given school day.
The 2,924 number is fairly small compared to some of the other 15 community and junior colleges in the state but when figuring gas prices and the cost to commute to campus during a semester even a small number will grow exponentially.
“We realize there is a problem and wish that there was something Northeast could do,” said Northeast Executive Vice President Larry Nabors. “But there isn't a single thing we can do that will directly affect the price of gas.”
Nabors is also feeling the pinch of being one of the 2,900 commuters to the Northeast campus and faces a drive from Ripley every day.
Enrollment numbers are important – in fact very important – to Northeast considering due to a jump in the full-time enrollment numbers during the fall and spring semesters NEMCC received additional funds from the state.
“We realize that it could affect our student enrollment but we hope it doesn't,” Nabors said. “It is making it more difficult for some students to attend school.”
Nevertheless, with gas hitting record highs, those approximately 2,900 commuters are looking at paying close to $1.5 million to the oil companies during their 16 weeks on campus from August-December.
Some may ask, “How can this number be so high with less than 3,000 people commuting to campus every day?”
A variety of conditions leads to the $1.5 million mark.
Commuters account for 87,000 miles driven per day to and from the Booneville-based campus calculated on a 30-mile round-trip.
Commuters come from all over to receive an education at Northeast. Some are a walk away living in Booneville but Northeast’s five-county area expands to include Tippah, Alcorn, Tishomingo, Prentiss and Union counties.
Calculating the estimated round-trip per student per day is tough but a 15-mile radius drawn around the NE campus hits a majority of students so a 30-mile round trip per day is what a commuter expects while coming to Northeast.
Eighty-seven thousand miles does not sound like a lot when it is figured into 2,900 people doing the driving but that is just in one day.
A week’s worth of driving by the Northeast commuters hits the odometer at just under the 500,000-mile mark – 435,000 to be exact.
That is a small sum of driving for those seeking an education at one of Mississippi’s community college.
A look at the price of gas and its recent jump makes any commuter cringe at the thought of driving to school five days a week.
As for miles per gallon, makes, models and condition of a commuter’s vehicle contributes to the miles per gallon a commuter will get on any given day as will driving in traffic as opposed to driving the open roads of U.S. 45 – so a general low estimate of 20 miles per gallon was used for this example.
At 20 miles per gallon, Northeast commuters burn through 4,350 gallons of the syrup every day and in the course of a week NE’s traveling 2,900 hit the gas pumps for a heart-murmuring 21,750 gallons.
Northeast has broken its semester down into 16 weeks for the fall – accounting for the week off for Thanksgiving in November.
Beginning with the start date of August 18 – the first full week of classes – and extending through middle December after final exams, Northeast students, faculty and staff can expect to put 348,000 gallons worth of gasoline into their vehicles.
Summer travel kicks up the gas market and with local entities already seeing gas near $4 per gallon, the milestone-mark is only one bump away from being hit.
Moreover, with 348,000 gallons worth of gas going into commuters’ vehicles during the fall for Northeast, the oil companies can see almost $1.5 million go into their bank accounts from the commuters at Northeast alone.
Northeast commuters, with their 30-mile round trip drives every day, are schedule to make a deposit of $1,392,000 into the oil companies’ revenues during the fall semester.
That is a far cry from the 1.90 gas paid by commuters less than three years ago according to MississippiGasPrices.com.
With the same scale but a gallon of gas costing under $2, NE commuters only deposited $661,200 into the oil companies’ bank accounts in 2005.
Even with Northeast commuters contributing close to $1.5 million to the oil companies’ subsidies during the fall semester, each of the 2,900 feels the pinch.
Commuters face forking out $480 just to drive to and from Northeast for the semester -- a small price to pay for an education but for some students on limited funds, $480 is half a semester’s tuition and can pay for all the books a majority of students needs for a semester.
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