Trustees for Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and Henderson State University in Arkadelphia on Thursday approved increases to tuition and fees for the coming school year.
The two universities are among those planning higher tuition and fee rates as state funding for higher education institutions in Arkansas remains level. The University of Central Arkansas board is considering a 4.25 percent tuition increase that would raise the per credit rate from $197.25 to $207.43, along with a bump in several fees. UCA trustees haven't set a date to vote on the proposed increases.
The University of Arkansas System board plans to take up rates Wednesday in Nashville in Howard County, and the Arkansas State University System will meet June 1 to set its schools' rates. Trustees for Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia plan to convene Thursday.
Many of the university and system boards are setting the rates, which take effect July 1, later than usual because the legislative fiscal session started at a later date and ended May 9. Because of the uncertainty at the time of Arkansas Works funding, the state's higher education institutions focused on the budget meetings before finalizing their own and preparing recommendations for tuition and fees.
At Arkansas Tech, trustees approved a 1.86 percent increase in in-state residents' tuition from $215 per credit hour to $219 per credit hour for undergraduate students. The university is also changing its athletics fee structure and adding on more to the health and wellness and transcript fees.
A full-time, undergraduate, in-state resident student taking 30 hours over two semesters will now pay $8,280 in tuition and fees, up from $7,740.
At Henderson State, the board approved a 3.86 percent tuition increase from $207 per credit hour to $215 per credit hour for students starting July 1. The panel also changed the student activity fee structure -- from a flat fee to a per-credit-hour fee -- and raised the athletics fee by $1.
A full-time, undergraduate, in-state resident student taking 30 hours over two semesters currently pays about $7,808 in tuition and mandatory fees. That student will now shell out $8,116 in tuition and fees.
Arkansas Tech
The increase at Arkansas Tech was the lowest in at least five years, said spokesman Sam Strasner.
The additional revenue, in part, will pay for a 1 percent cost-of-living salary increase for nonclassified employees and a 2 percent cost-of-living salary increase for classified employees. The adjustments will help keep the university a competitive employer compared with peer institutions, he said. Another slice of the pie will go toward an increase in the university's share in health insurance premiums, documents show.
The tuition increase alone is expected to bring in $986,574, but the university has accounted for $811,331 in additional revenue from a projected increase in enrollment. The university, the third largest in the state, is currently home to some 12,009 students and has been growing.
The university's board on Thursday also approved a fee structure change for athletics. Arkansas Tech was taking $15 out of the per-credit rate of $215 to help fund the athletics program, Strasner said. Now students will pay a $10 per credit hour athletics fee, while the university withdraws $5.50 out of the per-credit rate of $219, he said.
The net change is about 50 cents more, he said, but the university is phasing out the transfer of funds to the athletics program and will have a stand-alone athletics fee.
Arkansas Tech trustees also gave the green light to a $3 increase in the health and wellness fee, which will be $6 per credit hour, and a $1 bump for the now $2 per credit hour transcript fee. The transcript fee is to take care of rising administrative costs, Strasner said.
The rise in the health and wellness fee will let the university bolster its services, he said. The university is also in the process of moving its Health and Wellness Center into the Doc Bryan Student Services Center, closer to its other administrative teams. The move will also free up the center's current space in the Doc Bryan Lecture Hall for the university's nursing program, one of the most popular for incoming freshmen, he said.
In total, the university has budgeted for $5.5 million more, some of which will go toward student services, Strasner said. Arkansas Tech trustees also approved a strategic plan for the university, which includes raising the retention and graduation rates of its students and centralizing those efforts under one roof for the first time, he said.
Tuition at the university's Ozark campus will also go up from $113 per credit hour to $118 per credit hour.
Henderson State
At Henderson State, money from the tuition increase will help fulfill areas of the university's strategic plan, including adding money for institutional scholarships for its students.
The plan calls for increasing all student success indicators and, ultimately, doubling the six-year graduation rate. It also wants to provide peer-competitive faculty and staff compensation to attract and retain its employees and to raise the Arkadelphia school's overall profile.
Some 90 percent of Henderson's 3,530 students receive some type of financial aid, including federal Pell grants, which are awarded to students from low-income families and do not have to be repaid. The tuition bump will add $750,000 to institutional scholarships, which are awarded based on students' ACT college-entrance exam scores, high school grade point average and leadership ability, said university President Glen Jones.
"We understand the population we serve," he said."These scholarships ... will help offset the cost of higher education."
That would bring the total amount of institutional scholarships to about $9 million, spokesman Tonya Smith said. Jones did not know how many new students the extended scholarship funding would help and added it depended on how many students who have already earned an award continue along in their studies.
Last year, the university was able to use additional revenue from tuition and fees to bolster its academic advising staff, another way to boost student success, he said.
"We are making certain our finances begin to align with that commitment," Jones said of the student success goal.
He said he was thankful for the funding the school receives from the state but also understands that costs for items, including utilities, are on the rise. And state funding only accounts for about 32 percent of the university's total $65 million budget, while tuition and fee revenue make up most of the rest, the university said.
On Thursday, the university's trustees approved raising the athletics fee $1 to $17.25 per credit hour. The additional funding will go toward health and safety measures, such as reconditioning football helmets to follow NCAA guidelines.
Henderson State's board also voted to change the student activity fee from a flat $60 for a full-time student to $5.25 per credit hour. The recommendation -- the first change to the student activity fee in more than a decade -- came from more than 300 students who want to enhance student events on campus, the university said.
"That's important because we live in a very small community," Jones said. "There aren't a lot of activities available in the community. There's always two experiences: one is academic, and the other is co-curricular, which creates opportunities for students to visit and meet other students, be exposed in greater depth to issues of diversity and become more well-rounded as they think about the lives ahead of them."
A Section on 05/20/2016