The Arkansas State University System plans to raise tuition and fees by 1.9 percent at its Jonesboro campus with an approval from its trustees today.
Jonesboro administrators are asking trustees for a $2 increase in tuition to a rate of $202 per credit hour and tacking on a new $3 per credit hour deferred-maintenance fee. The ASU System board is meeting in Jonesboro to take up tuition and fee rates, along with operating and capital budgets, at Arkansas State University and its four community college campuses.
Arkansas State's proposed tuition and fee percentage is the lowest among its four-year public university peers, which ranged from a 3.5 percent tuition and fee increase at the University of Arkansas of Fayetteville to an 11.8 percent rate increase at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
[Click here to see the agenda for today's meeting of ASU System trustees.]
If the increases are approved, an in-state undergraduate student taking 30 credit hours over two semesters during the 2016-17 academic year at ASU-Jonesboro will pay $8,200, up $150 from $8,050. It would also place the second-biggest public university in the middle of the pack regarding tuition and mandatory fee costs.
"The board and I have both communicated to campuses that we wanted to see tuition and fee increases as minimal as possible," said ASU System President Chuck Welch. "We realize that every time that goes up, that's a further burden for our students and their families."
At Jonesboro, administrators prioritized new revenue for pay increases to faculty and staff members and to start long-term planning for deferred maintenance, Welch said. If ASU's budget is approved, the Jonesboro campus is planning for 1.25 percent faculty merit raises and 1 percent nonclassified staff merit raises. The campus would also put $2.5 million aside for deferred maintenance.
The university has some $371.5 million in deferred maintenance, $27.7 million of which is considered critical, board documents show. Systemwide, the figures rise to $481.5 million in deferred maintenance, $28.8 million of which is considered critical.
"We always have money for deferred maintenance, but we've never had a strategic plan on trying to prepare for the future," Welch said. "This is more of a shift in terms of our strategy and how we look at it. If we're more proactive and start planning better earlier, we can cut down on some of those costs and not get caught on the back end with a huge bill."
Arkansas State is putting about $12 million into maintenance projects on the Jonesboro campus this year, ranging from repairs at two of its on-campus housing options to a generator replacement at the Convocation Center. Part of the repair list is based on expected lifespan of some items, he said. And while no buildings will fall apart, Welch said, it's more of a necessity than a luxury.
If the new fee is approved, ASU will join UAM in adding a new deferred-maintenance fee. Last week, University of Arkansas System trustees approved UAM's new $10 per credit hour deferred-maintenance fee for the coming year and an additional $5 to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's "facility use" fee to take care of its maintenance needs.
Colleges and universities nationwide are feeling the pinch to finance maintenance needs from several 50-year-old buildings, said Tom Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, with headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"Many campus buildings were built to accommodate the baby boomers in the 1960s and 1970s, and these buildings are crumbling," he said. "And many campuses have significant backlogs of deferred maintenance. As states have been less willing to fund maintenance and buildings, institutions have increasingly had to rely on student fees."
And the political and economic realities in many states limit the amount of financing available to colleges and universities to address the maintenance needs, he said, adding that some states do pitch in.
"Deferred maintenance is generally at the bottom of the priority list for states," Harnisch said. "There can be philanthropic support or greater interest from state leaders to finance a new building versus fixing up an old building that doesn't have that level of support."
In Arkansas, legislators do not set aside money for higher education institutions' deferred-maintenance needs. The General Assembly has also kept funding for the state's public colleges and universities steady, leaving higher education leaders thankful but also realistic about a college or university's two main sources of revenue: state funding, and tuition and fees.
"Really, if you look at higher education overall, this is about six years in a row that this is essentially a flat budget," Welch said. "But it certainly makes the budgeting process that much more difficult."
In 1991, ASU-Jonesboro counted on about 68 percent of its education and general budget from the state, with about 28 percent from tuition and fees. Over the years, the percentages have come closer, and, now, the campus' education and general budget is nearly 56 percent made up of tuition and fees and 43 percent of state funds, the system said.
The other targeted expenditure at the Jonesboro campus is for merit pay increases, which will not be across-the-board, Welch said. One faculty member could get a full 1.25 percent merit raise, while another could get a 0.5 percent merit raise, he said.
Last year, the campus opted for one-time bonuses instead of raises. The ultimate goal is to try to get ASU faculty members at the average faculty salary for public four-year universities among all 16 states in the Southern Regional Education Board. As of 2014, faculty pay in Arkansas colleges and universities averaged $65,173 -- the last of the 16 states and below the education board's average of $77,029.
"We realize it's not a huge amount, but anything we can do to show how much we value employees helps," Welch said. "We had gotten fairly close to the average -- and closer in professor and associate than instructor. But we didn't do anything last year. As the economy improves, other states have come back and tried to make up for the last few years. We [had] made some real gains over the last five years, but you've got to maintain where you are and keep up."
For its two-year schools, the ASU System is proposing:
• Raising resident undergraduate tuition at Arkansas State University-Beebe and at the school's Little Rock Air Force Base campus from $96 per credit hour to $98 per credit hour; raising resident undergraduate tuition at ASU-Beebe's Heber Springs campus in-county tuition from $86 per credit hour to $93 per credit hour.
• Maintaining the $90 per credit hour tuition rates for in-district students and $110 per credit hour tuition rates for out-of-district, in-state students at Arkansas State University Mid-South in West Memphis; raising the campus safety fee $3 to $5 per credit hour.
• Increasing resident undergraduate tuition at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home $2 more, setting it at a rate of $94 per credit hour.
• Raising in-state undergraduate tuition at Arkansas State University-Newport from $91 to $93 per credit hour.
A Section on 06/01/2016