Students should be prepared for a larger-than-usual tuition hike in the coming year, but the magnitude of the increase will depend on the level of higher education budget cuts determined by Utah lawmakers in the coming legislative session.
If legislators decide on the proposed 5 percent cut this year and 10 percent cut in the coming fiscal year, as proscribed by legislative fiscal analysts, tuition would increase by an average of 31 percent if it were the only source of financial backing to make up for the losses.
Utah Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg said this is the last thing higher education officials want to do.
“The increase will be more than in normal years, but we are committed to not replacing all of it with tuition,” Sederburg said.
Some mandatory costs will definitely have to come from tuition, such as paying for utilities, minimum wage and bond obligations, but the level of the tuition increase would vary by campus, Sederburg said.
Associate Vice President for Budget and Planning Paul Brinkman said tuition and fees at the U will likely increase above last year’s 5.9 percent raise, but the exact amount of the increase is still undecided.
Brinkman said tuition and fees could model what happened at the U from 2002 through 2004, when Utah’s economy was feeling strained because of technology stock falls in the late 1990s and the recession that followed Sept. 11. From 2001 to 2002, tuition at the U jumped from about a 5 percent increase to a 9.3 percent increase, and kept increasing in the 9 percent range until 2005.
Based on those trends, Brinkman said this year’s tuition and fees will likely increase more than usual, but the increases probably won’t be in the double digits.
Administrators are preparing to make budget cuts rather than trying to get additional revenue through tuition or other sources, Brinkman said. Although the U is still carrying on with its capital campaign, some departments might look to private funds to cover costs.
“We can’t put this on the back of the students, not entirely, but at the end of the day it’s better to increase tuition rather than have something bad happen,” Brinkman said. “We are sympathetic to students who are also facing a dicey economy8212;we’re not the only ones.”
As part of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s $1.1 billion two-year budget cut proposal for the state released last week, he proposed to reduce the higher education budget by an additional 1.5 percent this year and 7 percent in the next fiscal year, which would be accomplished by bonding and backfilling.
Utah System of Higher Education officials do not expect the Utah Legislature to be as kind with the system already preparing for the proposed 5 and 10 percent cuts and a possibility of even higher reductions. Legislative staff have submitted newrequestsforcutsof 7.5 percent this year and an additional 15 percent for the next fiscal year.
Even with the smaller 5 and 10 percent cuts, the effects would be dramatic for higher education. According to the state system of higher education, with the 5 percent cut alone, Utah colleges and universities would have to lay off 500 faculty and staff members in the state, with 495 fewer student aid recipients, an increased reliance on adjunct faculty, large reductions in concurrent enrollment and the risk of “serious dilution of programs.”
With the proposed 10 percent cut for the next fiscal year, there would be double the faculty and student aid losses and the possibility of eliminating programs and departments.
If the cuts are increased from there, members of the Utah State Board of Regents said this raises the question of how to prepare for the future.
“Given the uncertainty, we are asking presidents to be extremely tight-fisted…and think ahead to what this would mean,” Sederburg said.
Although colleges and departments are still determining possibilities for budget cuts, some departments are already implementing changes. The English department, for example, has decided to cut about half of its summer courses, only running courses that are central to the major.
“The faculty are depressed,” said English Department Chair Vince Pecora. “Some make a little extra money by teaching summer classes and it hurts the students because nowadays they count on the summer to fulfill requirements and help them graduate.”
The department is encouraging students who needed to take the classes during the summer to take them during the Spring Semester or choose another course route. Pecora said the department has also terminated two faculty searches, one for creative writing and one for gender studies and Asian American studies, which might not be filled if the economy doesn’t improve soon.
“Everybody’s getting hurt,” Pecora said. “We’re trying to minimize the impact to students.”