UCA proposes 4.25% jump in tuition; board vote put off

The University of Central Arkansas board of trustees will vote in the coming weeks on the school's proposed budget for fiscal 2017, which includes a 4.25 percent tuition rise and fee increases in several other areas.


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University President Tom Courtway and the trustees' audit and finance committee decided Thursday to hold off on voting on the budget and announced their decision at the trustees' meeting Friday. The matter was not discussed after the announcement.

The tuition and fee increases would be the third such increase in four years at the university. The budget for the current fiscal year -- July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016 -- did not include a tuition increase but did include an increase for room and board.

The board must approve a budget for fiscal 2017 before July 1.

Because of the later-than-usual legislative fiscal session, many schools haven't taken up fiscal 2017 budgets yet.

Many public colleges and universities across the state have increased tuition and fees repeatedly in recent years as state contributions to higher education remain flat. Last year, five campuses in the University of Arkansas System, Arkansas State University, Arkansas Tech University, Henderson State University and others raised tuition.

According to a statement from Courtway supported by other trustees, pushing back the budget vote is intended to give administration officials and the trustees more time for review. Two trustees from the audit and finance committee said after the meeting that they didn't anticipate that the proposed tuition and fee increases would change.

"We just want an opportunity and time for everyone to reach consensus," Trustee Robert "Bunny" Adcock said.

Adcock serves on the audit and finance committee. Asked if any specific programs or initiatives were prompting the increases increase in tuition and fees or the budget, Adcock said none was. He said the increases were related to paying staff members more and were a symptom of the larger climate of stagnant state funding for public universities that has left tuition and fees as the most flexible revenue sources.

He said he expected the review to look at where the budget can spend less money or more money but not whether to change the tuition and fee increases as proposed.

Courtway declined to comment other than in his prepared statement, which emphasized more time to review the budget "but most importantly make sure the proposed cost of living adjustments for faculty and staff are at the level they need to be as we move ahead."

Trustee Kay Hinkle, who is also a member of the audit and finance committee, said she would like to see an even higher increase in the cost-of-living adjustment proposed for faculty and staff members in the next school year, which is currently proposed at 1 percent. But Hinkle said she didn't have a number in mind and would consider what the university could afford.

Hinkle said trustees were first presented with a budget at a retreat at the end of March, but additional proposals and figures came in after that. She said trustees received the final budget only "recently."

The proposed budget for the 2017 fiscal year, which has grown mostly because of tuition and fee increases, is for more than $182.3 million, up about $4.8 million from the $177.4 million in estimated total expenditures this year. Estimated total income this year is $184.3 million. The larger proposed budget is mostly connected to higher costs for staff members and contracts.

The budget increase includes $250,000 for faculty promotions and advancement, $343,233 for four new faculty positions, more than $800,000 in higher contract expenses and $790,079 more in debt service related to the Donaghey Hall and Conway Corporation Center for Sciences.

The budget proposal includes:

• A 4.25 percent increase in tuition for undergraduate and graduate students. The increase would mean in-state undergraduate students would pay $207.43 per credit hour, up from $197.25, and graduate students would pay $255.23 per credit hour, up from $243.04. The increase, expected to generate $2.7 million in revenue, would be used to pay for salary and cost-of-living adjustments, as well as staff development, leases and other contracts.

• A 4.5 percent increase in room and board, including a 5 percent increase in meal plans and a 4 percent increase in room rates. That would raise the room and board rate from $2,991 per semester to $3,124 per semester, for an increase of $133. The increase in meal plans would raise $243,000 to cover a $209,360 increase in the school's contract with food service provider Aramark. The room increase, projected to bring in $551,000, would go toward continuing maintenance and upgrades to housing. The school's recommended repairs to residence halls and university apartments is more than $16.8 million.

• A $1 increase in athletic fees from $17 to $18 per credit hour, a 5.9 percent increase. The increase, which is being proposed to help keep the athletic department sustainable, would still keep the university's athletic fee as the third-lowest of Arkansas Division I public universities. The athletic fee was last raised in the 2011 fiscal year.

• A $30 increase in tuition and fees for graduate students enrolled in a fully online program, from $270 per credit hour to $300 per credit hour, an 11.1 percent increase. Tuition and fees for these students were raised $30 last year. Before that, trustees lowered the fee to $240 in 2012.

• A $200 increase -- 2.6 percent -- in semester tuition and fees for students participating in the Global Education Project, from $7,650 per semester to $7,850 per semester. Also proposed is a $125 increase -- 3.9 percent -- in five-week summer session tuition and fees participating in the project, from $3,225 per session to $3,350, that would go into effect in the summer of 2017. These increases are proposed to cover expected room and board, insurance and other costs increases. The project is a partnership with foreign universities.

• A $5 increase -- 50 percent -- in the identification-card replacement fee, from $10 to $15. The change is projected to bring in $10,000. The university notes that the school's fee is the lowest among Arkansas' public universities.

For undergraduate students registered for 15 credit hours in a semester who don't study abroad or lose their identification cards, the increase in tuition and mandatory fees would cost a student $4,112.10 per semester, up from $3,944.40. Such a student would pay $335.40 more per year.

The Student Government Association passed resolutions in April that "recognize" the need for the tuition and room and board increases.

Immediate past president of the faculty senate, Ben Rowley, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology, told the trustees Friday morning that faculty members were involved in the budget discussions from early on.

Rowley lamented that part-time adjunct pay wouldn't increase this year, after what had been estimated as 20 years without an increase, and that no other benefits for faculty members had been proposed along with the cost-of-living adjustment.

Even so, Rowley thanked Courtway and Diane Newton, the university's vice president for finance and administration, for their work in the past three years to wrangle the university's finances together "in an area where we have very little new money coming in, if any at all."

Metro on 05/14/2016

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