Brittany Dyer, 23, dropped out of the Community College of Rhode Island for three semesters when she ran out of money in her freshman year. This year she will receive free tuition as student body president of the Warwick campus.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

Four years ago, after just one semester at the Community College of Rhode Island, Brittany Dyer dropped out.

Dyer was simply unable to keep up with the tuition, fees and books, as well as all her other bills, such as gas for her car.

“I started as a full-time student, but it was really tough,” Dyer, now 23, says. “I was paying for it on my own, without help from my parents, and I really didn’t know about loans or financial aid.”

A year and a half after she left CCRI, a friend persuaded her to apply for financial aid. Dyer took out a federal loan, which covered her college expenses and books. A part-time job as a piano teacher helped her cover other bills.

For the coming school year, Dyer found an even more creative way to pay for school. Elected student body president of the Warwick campus, Dyer will receive free tuition. She’s also received a scholarship that will help cover fees and books. She plans to graduate in May with an associate’s degree in music performance, and hopes to transfer to the University of Rhode Island.

The talent of finding creative ways to pay for college — financial aid, scholarships, grants, work — will probably be in greater demand this fall for students at two Rhode Island public colleges.

Tomorrow evening, the Board of Governors for Higher Education is expected to approve last-minute tuition and fee hikes at CCRI and Rhode Island College beyond the increases already made for next year. This is the second time in three years that the Board of Governors has had to increase tuition and fees after having set increased rates the previous fall. But deep budget cuts approved by the General Assembly this month left state colleges scrambling for more money. The state higher education system was cut by $17 million. At the same time, the state scholarship program was cut by $2.6 million — almost a third of its budget.

Jack Warner, the state’s commissioner of high education, says the increases will likely pass. Overall, tuition and fees at CCRI will increase by 8.6 percent, or $245, for in-state students. The price at RIC will go up 9.8 percent, or $515. Last fall, the board had approved hikes of 5.4 percent at CCRI and 5.6 percent at RIC — a yearly increase of $154 and $296, respectively.

The tuition and fee hikes at URI — 6 percent, or $494, for in-state students — will not change because the school has reached a target of 100 additional freshmen, Warner said.

“This is something we are reluctant to do,” Warner said. “We usually set tuition and fees in the fall, and that gives students and families and financial aid offices enough time to plan for whatever increase is coming. We don’t change things last minute unless it’s truly a very difficult situation for us, and this year certainly qualifies as that.”

AT THE SAME time costs continue to rise at the state colleges, scholarship aid is falling.

The Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority’s budget was cut by $2.6 million for the 2008-2009 school year, forcing the authority to reduce the maximum grant award from $1,400 a year to $1,200. The average grant award is $1,079 and is split evenly between fall and spring semesters.

Rather than deny students scholarships at the last minute, the authority recently voted to award scheduled scholarships to about 16,000 students this fall, but the situation looks bleak for the spring, said RIHEAA spokeswoman Marisol Garcia.

“No one will be affected for the fall semester,” Garcia said. “But our budget was cut by 29 percent this year.”

Next spring, Garcia said, the authority may have to consider reducing the amount of each award or the number of students receiving awards — or both. The authority has about $11.3 million to dole out in the coming academic year — $6.4 million from the state, $4.5 million from profits made from a college savings program, the CollegeBoundfund, and $437,000 in federal money.

The state’s contribution this year is slightly less than it was 25 years ago — in 1983 the state gave out $6.7 million in scholarships.

RIC’S FINANCIAL aid office is expecting calls from students in the coming weeks because of the reduction in scholarship money and the increases in tuition and fees that are awaiting Board of Governors approval. The office is directing students to take out unsubsidized federal loans to help them make up the shortfall, said Janet O’Connor, RIC’s associate director of financial aid.

“It will help them, but at the same time, because it’s an unsubsidized Stafford Loan, that means the federal government is not paying interest while they are in school,” O’Connor said.

The trend of states giving less money to state colleges and scholarships means the burden of paying for higher education falls more heavily on students and their families, Warner said.

Operating public higher education in Rhode Island costs about $800 million a year, of which just $162 million comes from the state — about the same amount the state gave the colleges eight years ago. Yet in that time frame, gas, electricity, wages and other costs have gone up considerably. The higher education system also receives some money from federal funds and grants, but the bulk of the remaining $638 million is covered by students and their families in the form of tuition, fees and residence hall and dining costs, Warner said.

Student leaders decried the last-minute tuition and fee hikes, saying they particularly harm low- and moderate-income students.

“It’s outrageous,” said Christopher E. Buonanno, president of RIC’s student government. “Students at RIC and CCRI are usually the first in their families to go to college and almost all of them work while they are in school. It is already very tough for them, so I don’t understand how lawmakers could have approved these increases. They are supposed to be looking out for students.”

Buonanno said he is worried students will drop out or cut back on the number of classes.

“This will result in some people not coming to college, even when they have the smarts and wherewithal,” he said. “And it means they will be paying off loans for many more years, which means it will take them longer to get ahead in life once they are out of school.”

jjordan@projo.com