Editor's Note: The cost of differential tuition was written incorrectly in the original version of this article. This has since been corrected. The Daily Lobo apologizes for any confusion.
Differential tuition has been proposed at the University of New Mexico’s College of Arts and Sciences Department — this could mean charging undergraduate students an additional $15 per credit hour and graduate students an additional $100 per credit hour.
“The college has gone to the provost (and) regents, and the University has gone to the state legislatures and asked for more money. And the answer is no,” said Phil Ganderton, senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, in a meeting Wednesday.
The college is now proposing differential tuition instead, he said. The changes could be implemented next year, but the figures can still change.
“We’ve run the survey around students,” Ganderton said. A proposal has already been submitted to the college, and a new proposal will be analyzed at the end of the month to be resubmitted in November.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Ganderton also clarified a few other facts about the proposal:
UNM is required to compare its tuition with 22 other higher education institutions that are similar in size, research status and demographics.
If the tuition increase is made, the College of Arts and Sciences would be ranked third lowest among those 22 institutions for undergraduate tuition charges. The college will remain lowest for graduate student tuition.
If the proposed tuition hike runs successfully, the college’s budget would increase by 7 percent.
Although more than half of the funds would go toward hiring and retaining faculty, the college has also made the proposal to spend at least 20 percent on financial aid for those who are impacted by differential tuition. For graduate students, at least 75 percent of differential tuition will go to offset the cost to students.
The college will not use the differential tuition to cover administrational operation or administrators’ salaries.
If scholarships do not cover a student's dissertation hours, that student will be required to pay for differential tuition. International students who do not receive financial aid that covers differential tuition will also be required to pay the additional cost. Graduates taking undergraduate courses will pay the graduate tuition fee.
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“Approximately two-thirds of all research public universities charge differential tuition across the country,” Ganderton said. “And it’s hard to know whether differential tuition causes the state to reduce their funding regardless of this.”
With less University funding overall, the department receives fewer funds and has been losing the faculty members, he said, adding Fewer faculty members and advisement is also be linked to lower graduation rates.
“We cannot raise that revenue to guarantee quality education without there being some financial burden or consequences for some students,” Ganderton said. “It’s very unlikely that I will be able to achieve 100 percent unanimous support.”
Each year, the College of Arts and Sciences plans on reporting on University websites on how much money students are allocated.
Ashish Khatri is a news reporter at Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
