USU to raise tuition, hire teachers
Utah State University students will be paying more to attend classes next year.
President Kermit L. Hall announced Wednesday the tentative Tier II Tuition increase for the 2003-04 school year.
A proposal to increase tuition by $1.7 million came just weeks after the State Board of Regents announced another Tier I increase for next year.
Hall’s increase will amount to a 5-percent jump. Combined, the Tier I and Tier II increases will raise tuition at USU 9.5 percent.
“I don’t want to see our tuition increase get above 10 percent,” Hall said.
In an e-mail to higher-education administrators, Gov. Mike Leavitt promised he “will not propose nor support reductions in public and higher education” this year. The state is likely to have another budget shortfall of at least $80 million, he said. Nevertheless, Leavitt said Utah’s higher-education institutions are going to be important to the state’s future.
“I believe Utah’s education system is a key to our long-term economic success and that it might be the highest funding priority of state government,” he said.
Hall acknowledged that the purpose behind the new tuition increases is for the university to enhance libraries, implement a new student information system, increase the number of sections in bottleneck courses, and hire new faculty and advisers. The biggest problem facing students at USU is they do not have enough teachers, he said. That is one reason the administration has decided to implement this increase.
“Additional faculty should drive additional research dollars,” he said.
Those research dollars are vital to keep USU running, Hall said.
Dax Mangus, the Natural Resources senator, asked Hall why the student body had to be punished for the inability of some colleges to find solutions for their advising problems.
“Equity is not the issue. Excellence is the issue,” Hall said.
Hall said the advising issue is not a college-by-college dilemma. He said it is a university problem that needs a universitywide solution.
Provost Stan Albrecht said part of the solution will be adding a Web-based component. Students will be able to see options online and may also e-mail advisers with this new link, he said. The advisers will then be required to dedicate a part of their day to answering e-mails from students, Albrecht said.
USU’s research programs rank 16th in the country in some categories, Hall said, though he doesn’t think that is enough.
“This isn’t rhetoric, sports fans, we’re right on the picket fence,” he said.
If the school doesn’t provide money for research programs, it could fall onto what Hall said is the wrong side of that picket fence.
Graduate students will not face such stiff increases in tuition this year. Last year, they received the largest increase. Hall said he doesn’t want the graduate student tuition at USU to be higher than that of the University of Utah, and he said it is quickly approaching that level.
The second-tier increases are independent from those made by the Board of Regents. The Tier I increases made by the regents contribute to a fund, Hall said. Money is then distributed to all of the higher-education institutions in the state as the regents deem necessary and may not be distributed in equal amounts. For that reason, Hall said, it is important for USU to make the increases they are making through Tier II Tuition increases.
The figures released by Hall and Albrecht were subject to some questioning by members of the ASUSU Executive Council. When finishing adding up the numbers distributed by Albrecht, Engineering Senator John Jacklin asked Hall whether or not the $85,000 not included in the figures would be used for another new conference table in Champ Hall. Hall said the numbers were not finalized yet. He asked the members of the council to look at the numbers and make suggestions in accordance with the needs they see at the university. Hall also challenged the council to find another administrator in the state who was willing to do the things he does for USU.
“I pay for my own transportation. If you can find any other president of any other university who is willing to meet with their students and talk about their tuition increases dollar for dollar, bring him here, and I’ll kiss him,” he said.
-jonryan@cc.usu.edu