Chuck Crespy, dean of the Anderson Schools of Management, said raising tuition 39.1 percent for the graduate school was a necessary evil.
The school is facing an accreditation review in the fall and needs funds to hire more tenure-track faculty and create more educational programs.
"We need to be able to show we made efforts," he said.
Edward Rodriguez, a senior who will attend Anderson next fall, said the increase was steep.
He said it wasn't necessary, and the school has been doing well. He said accreditation shouldn't be a factor in raising tuition.
Rodriguez said he heard about the increase through the Daily Lobo, not through the school.
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"The school did not inform us they were going to bend us over," he said.
Crespy said the school is falling behind because it hasn't had a tuition increase in about 10 years. He has been dean for seven months.
In order to keep the school's accreditation, he said, the school needs to hire more faculty members, develop more educational programs and come up with a strategic plan.
The way to do this is raise tuition, he said.
The tuition hike works out to $50 per credit hour for graduate classes on top of the 9.9 percent tuition increase the regents approved April 12.
"We think we're doing the right thing for the integrity of our program and the quality of education," he said.
He said even with the tuition increase, it costs less to attend Anderson than schools it competes with.
"We struggled with the idea of, should we be affordable or should we build programs of excellence?" Crespy said. "At this point, we don't have any choice but to raise tuition."
He said 15 percent of the money the school gets from the increase will go to need-based financial aid and 85 percent will go to hire faculty.
The School of Law
UNM's School of Law also raised tuition more than 9.9 percent.
Dean Suellyn Scarnecchia said it will charge students an extra $500 for two semesters.
She said the increase will create $150,000 that will go to the operating budget, which pays for technology, conferences and supplies.
She said the school never gets increases to its operational budget and has been running $250,000 below budget.
"It will mean we will be able to pay for what we've been doing," she said.
She said the other $100,000 will hopefully come from private donations. Donations will stabilize the school in the future, she said.
Cody Rogers said she doesn't see a problem with the increase.
"We're a really poor school," she said.
Student loans will cover her tuition increase next year, she said.
Rogers said students were not involved in setting the increase at $500.
"It will probably in the long run be put to good use," she said.
Rogers said she wasn't against the increase, but she was surprised.
"If there's a positive use for it, $500 is not intolerable," she said.
Scarnecchia said other UNM departments keep positions open and use those funds for operations. The law school has been doing that, she said.
She said the state has not increased the school's operational budget.
Scarnecchia said there was an open meeting to let students know about the increase.
Matt Clarke, a first-year law student, said the increase is unfortunate, but no one is really upset.
"UNM is still a good deal," he said.
He said he attended the meeting and received an e-mail about the increase.
"The school has been running in the red for a while," he said. "The dean has been trying to balance the budget for a while."
