MUSC trustees review proposed FY20 budgets for university, hospital authority

Board holds in-state tuition at current levels with no increases for next fiscal year

COLUMBIA, S.C. (June 28, 2019) -The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Medical University Hospital Authority (MUHA) Board of Trustees held a special-called meeting to receive and discuss proposed fiscal year 2020 budget information. Budgets will be voted on at the regularly scheduled August 2019 board of trustees meeting.

“It’s been an incredible year of growth across the MUSC enterprise,” said MUSC President David J. Cole, M.D., FACS. “As we close fiscal year 2019 and move into fiscal year 2020, we remain keenly aware that health care is at a crossroads. Together with our board of trustees, we will continue to lead health care innovation for our state with the understanding that solid fiscal stewardship is the bedrock of how we continue to change what’s possible for our patients, students, faculty, employees, as well as the larger South Carolina community and those in need well beyond our borders.”

One recent example of this fiscal stewardship philosophy is the effort to temper tuition costs for students and families. The MUSC board voted unanimously in April to hold in-state tuition rates for fiscal year 2020 at the same levels as fiscal year 2019. The hold on in-state tuition rates applies to all six MUSC colleges.       

“The MUSC Board of Trustees was proud to hold the line on in-state tuition for our six colleges,” said Charles W. Schulze, CPA, chairman of the MUSC board. “This could not have been done without the leadership in the General Assembly and Governor McMaster.”

The MUSC/MUHA Board of Trustees serve as separate bodies to govern the university and hospital, holding two days of committee and board meetings six times a year.

###

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state’s only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 700 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state’s leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2018, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $276.5 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2018, for the fourth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.