UNM Budget Director Curtis Porter addressed the ASUNM Senate Wednesday in a tuition forum to outline the University's stance on funding priorities and tuition credits.
Porter said that students are often confused by the term tuition credit because it sounds as if the University is gaining revenue.
"It is obvious a lot of people are concerned with tuition issues and especially tuition increases," Porter said.
He said that tuition credit is "a misnomer and it is not a good thing" for the University.
The New Mexico Commission on Higher Education recommends tuition credit increases to the State Legislature and the Legislature takes that recommendation into consideration when voting on how much state institutions of higher education will receive in a fiscal year. The Legislature appropriates a certain amount of money to universities, but the University is expected to generate the money that the Legislature designates as tuition credit, which can mean higher tuition rates for students.
"The tuition credits are a subtraction from the appropriations from the state," Porter said. "We have to make that up somehow."
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Last year undergraduate tuition increased 4.7 percent.
Porter said that another factor the Legislature looks at when considering tuition credit increases is where New Mexico institutions rate among tuition fees and per capita income with other states. New Mexico ranks near the bottom in tuition rates for universities, regional colleges and community colleges, according to a 2001 Condition of Higher Education Report in New Mexico.
Porter said that the Legislature looks at these figures and determines if a tuition increase would significantly hurt the students' pocket books. However, he said that the Legislature sometimes fails to look at the per capita income, which New Mexico ranks 48th in the nation.
"Tuition credit is a method of the Legislature balancing the budget," Porter said. "Universities are the only ones that the Legislature views as having self-balancing revenues."
Porter encouraged students to take part in the Legislature's UNM day, Feb. 10 in Santa Fe, to lobby to keep tuition down.
"Our priorities as an administration is no tuition credit," he said. "We don't know if we'll be successful. We encourage your help. If you go to Santa Fe to lobby as a group of students, they will listen to you."
The Associated Students of UNM will be conducting a lobbying forum Feb. 6, at 6 p.m. to inform students on important issues for those who plan to go to lobby in Santa Fe. ASUNM has yet to determine where the meeting will be held.
Duff Lill, ASUNM lobbying director, encouraged students to attend the Legislature or if they were unable to attend he urged them to write their state senators about the tuition credit issue.
