A University of Arkansas board of trustees committee recommended on Tuesday denying the tuition and fee proposals of four of the system’s four-year universities and asking chancellors of those campuses to cap their student-cost increases at lower levels.
The vote by the fiscal affairs committee led campus leaders to retool their budget proposals - scrapping plans for raises, increased staffing and special projects - to prepare for possible approval of the reduced increases when the full board meets in Stuttgart on Thursday.
If the full board approves the proposal, it will be a rare move, UA System leaders said.The board has traditionally approved the full tuition and fee proposals presented by chancellors, even after scrutiny and questioning in public meetings, they said.
“While I trust the chancellors and I respect their work, I still have to raise questions,” committee Chairman Jim von Gremp of Rogers said.
Von Gremp recommended new increase levels for all of those campuses after spending several days reviewing their budget plans, staffing needs and cost-cutting measures, he said. Thec ommittee, meeting in a conference call, approved his plan.
The recommendations reduced the size of the chancellors’ requested increases by small amounts at campuses such as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and cut the size of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s proposed increase by more than half.
The trustees largely allowed chancellors to determine what fee proposals they would trim if the full board approves the modified requests.
The committee’s plans “show a willingness to hold the line as much as we can,” said Trustee Mark Waldrip of Moro, who voted in support of the recommendation.
In an unprecedented step, the committee met last week with chancellors who sought combined tuition and fee increases greater than 3.5 percent for the 2013-2014 academic year.
In a nearly four-hour meeting, they questioned chancellors of UA-Fort Smith, UAPB, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas at Monticello about their proposals, their student demographics and their history of cost increases.
Under the committee’s recommendation on Tuesday, UA-Fort Smith, which requested a 10 percent increase in tuition and fees, would be allowed to raise its tuition and fees 3.5 percent, from $5,436 to $5,627 in the 2013-14 academic year. That assumes the costs for a typical, in-state student taking a total of 30 credit hours over two semesters. Costs may vary depending on factors such as a student’s course load and field of study.
Von Gremp recommended rejecting UA-Fort Smith’s request for a $70 per semester flat fee for students taking more than six credit hours, which would be used to fund a new recreation and wellness center.
He recommended the board further study that proposal before considering it later.
UA-Fort Smith Chancellor Paul Beran told the committee last week that his campus has typically been one of the least expensive in the state. He asked trustees to consider the size of his proposed increase in dollars, not percentage points.
“I guess that wasn’t a compelling argument,” Beran said in an interview Tuesday.
He said he thought the committee “was acting in the best interest of the students and the institutions” by carefully considering how the cost increases would affect them.
“We’re going to scrub our budget,” Beran said. “We’re going to look at strategic places [to cut]. I don’t believe in across-the-board percentage cuts.”
UALR, which requested a 4.9 percent increase, would also be required to cap its increase at 3.5 percent under the committee’s recommendation, which would raise total costs for a typical student from $7,344 to $7,601.
Chancellor Joel Anderson said in an interview that the proposal means UALR may have to reconsider planned salary increases for faculty and staff.
“They gave us the opportunity to make our case, and we did,” he said of the committee. “With the 3.5, the sky is certainly not falling.”
Citing special circumstances, the committee voted to recommend increases above the 3.5 percent threshold for UAPB and UA-Monticello, but it still wants those campuses to trim requests. Those circumstances include the need for a new campuswide phone system at UA-Monticello and declining enrollment at UAPB.
The committee approved the tuition request for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, which recommended a 3.5 percent tuition and fee increase, which would raise costs for a typical student from $7,554 to $7,818, allowing it to maintain its place as the the highest-priced four-year university in the system.
The committee recommended board approval of tuition and fee requests for the system’s five community colleges, which only exceeded the 3.5 percent threshold after they increased or added campus safety fees necessary for a systemwide initiative to increase security.
Newly appointed Trustee Cliff Gibson of Monticello was the only committee member to vote against recommending reduced cost increases.
He cited average faculty salaries in Arkansas that are lower than many other states, state funding that hasn’t increased to keep pace with enrollment growth, and the work of chancellors to justify their proposals before the committee and to explain how they planned to assist low-income students with financing their education.
“The vast majority of the requests that I saw were well-documented by facts and analysis proven by the chancellors,” Gibson said.
State appropriations have traditionally funded about half the cost of a student’s education, with tuition and fees representing the other half. But the role of student costs has grown as state funding remained constant while enrollment increased in recent years, creating new funding needs, chancellors have said.
The five four-year universities in the UA System have seen total annual enrollment climb by more than 7,000 full-time-equivalent students from fiscal 2008 to today, the UA System said. Full-time-equivalent enrollment is calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours taught on campus in a semester by 15, the average full-time course load.
Meanwhile, state funding per full-time-equivalent student has not kept pace, falling by 17 percent from $7,210 to$5,994 during that time, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
The fiscal affairs committee plans to further study the way the state funds higher education in the next year and to compare factors such as income and cost of living in neighboring states to make sure UA institutions are funded sufficiently to keep pace with peer institutions in the southern United States, von Gremp said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/22/2013