Despite a vocal and lengthy protest by about 50 students Tuesday, the Board of Regents approved an 8.3 percent tuition and fee increase for graduate and undergraduate students.
The regents quietly voted on the increase during the third hour of a five-hour meeting as students shouted about the issue, unaware the measure was being passed. Student Regent Eric Anaya voted against the increase, while Regent Sandra Begay-Campbell abstained.
Regents Larry Willard, Judith Herrera, Jack Fortner and David Archuleta voted for the increase.
The tuition increase was part of an action item that includes a 10 percent tuition and fee increase for law and medical students and 6.5 percent salary increases for faculty and staff.
Students marched from Mesa Vista Hall to Scholes Hall chanting “Don’t Raise Tuition” and “The Students, United, Will Never Be Divided,” seeking student support along the way. When they reached Scholes Hall, the students were instructed to stay more than 100 feet away from the Roberts Room, where the meeting was conducted. They were told that the room, which seats less than 100 people, was already 10 seats away from capacity and that they could hear the meeting downstairs.
The students also were told that they could rotate in those seats, but they refused to attend the meeting unless they could go in as a group.
“We told you to get a bigger meeting room yesterday, and you didn’t listen to us,” ASUNM Sen. Tim Serna shouted in the hallway.
The group trickled in a few at a time to participate in the meeting’s public comment period until Serna asked faculty and staff to give up their seats, which they did.
“First of all, we need to move this meeting because students were not informed and that’s bull,” he said. “Second, you would not be here without us, so we need to table this item until students are properly informed about the issue and have a chance to respond. The Board of Regents would be nowhere without students and neither would the President of this University.”
The public comment period involved contentious statements exchanged mostly by students and Willard, who is the regent president and runs the meetings.
Most students told the board they were not informed about the meeting, the tuition issue should be tabled until it could be explained and that they could not afford to pay more in tuition and would have to leave school. The group emphasized that it favored staff and faculty raises but thought the funding for those increases should come from other areas.
UNM student Joaquin ArgÅello sat at the main table with the regents and opened his remarks in Spanish, saying it was a proud day for him that so many students showed their disgust with the University’s action. He later addressed the regents in English, telling them that they were failing students. He pointed to Student Regent Anaya, ASUNM President Jennifer Liu and GPSA President Brian Col¢n and said that they also failed students.
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“This process is not fair or just and it should not continue,” he said.
Willard, frustrated by ArgÅello’s lengthy and antagonistic remarks, closed the public comment period by taking a 10-minute recess.
Regent Richard Toliver then said that the students were being too disrespectful and should be cleared from the room. UNM President Bill Gordon said the students should be allowed to stay and Toliver left the meeting.
Following the recess, student Ben Tucker told the regents that funding that went to expand the football stadium would have been a good place to start trimming the budget rather than imposing tuition increases.
“It’s a good day to be arrested,” Tucker said as he read names off a petition signed by students against the tuition increase.
Tucker later had a change of heart when Dean of Students Randy Boeglin told him he would be suspended if he continued to interrupt the meeting.
Julie Weaks, interim vice president for Business and Finance, then went through a presentation explaining why University administrators recommended the tuition increase. She told the regents that the University Planning Council, a group that included three student representatives, considered 15 different funding possibilities before deciding on the 8.3 percent increase.
Weaks said that several factors shaped the decision.
The first was the Legislature’s decision to impose a 5 percent tuition credit, which means it expects the University to use a 5 percent tuition increase to meet its budget needs. The second was the Legislature’s decision not to help pay utilities for this past year, which left UNM to foot the bill for soaring gas prices.
Another reason Weaks pointed to was that the Legislature’s decision to adopted one of UNM’s two proposed formula fixes. The state has not updated the formula used to calculate the actual cost to educate students in 10 years, and Weaks said the formula needs to updated at least every five years.
“We really just have very few options left with so many demands in our budget,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot we can do.”
Anaya motioned to table the tuition increase until the students could learn more about the issue, which garnered applause from the crowd, but the motion was not seconded. The students tried to second the item themselves, but Archuleta then moved to pass the increase. Students chanted louder and did not realize that the board then voted to approve the increase.
During his administrative remarks, Gordon assured the students that, while the budget process already involves student representatives, steps will be taken next year to make it more accessible to all students.
“It makes it really difficult to make changes the day we need to make this decision, but I promise that we will make sure that, in the future, we find a better way of including students in this process,” he said.
Liu, Col¢n and Gordon thanked the students for coming and encouraged them to see the decision as a positive step for student participation.
ArgÅello said after the five-hour meeting that he was disappointed with the entire process.
“It’s just really clear that they don’t care about what students have to say and only care about making money off of us,” he said. “I don’t know where we go from here. That’s up to the students, but I don’t think this is over.”
