by Katy Knapp
Daily Lobo
At today's Budget Summit, the University will be looking at possible tuition increases for next year.
Five campus groups submitted proposals to the president's office last week that will be discussed at the summit.
The highest increase is being proposed by the Deans' Council, which is made up of the deans of UNM's colleges and schools. They are supporting an 8.3 percent increase in tuition and fees to help fund University Libraries and to create new programs at UNM.
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Tuition and fees are slated to go up by at least 5.3 percent due to the inflating costs of utilities and insurance prices.
With a 5.3 percent increase, tuition and fees would go from $4,109 to $4,323 per full-time resident undergraduate. The increase will make up for a $3.5 million gap in funding from the Legislature - mainly to cover the inflation of gas and electricity costs at the University, and the increase of workers' compensation premiums.
Tuition and fees were raised 9.9 percent last year and 12 percent in 2004.
The Associated Students of UNM is the only group not requesting a tuition increase.
Vera Norwood, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is representing the Deans' Council at the summit.
She said after the utilities and health insurance costs are covered, there will be no money left in the budget to fund other programs.
One priority for the Deans' Council, she said, is to create more summer and intersession courses on campus. The council is asking for $940,000 to fund the initiative, which is a 1 percent increase in tuition and fees.
Norwood said intersession and summer courses would allow students who dropped a course over the semester to keep their Lottery Scholarships by making up the credit needed.
"We would also be using the campus year-round. It's a more efficient use of the campus if there are summer and intersession courses," she said.
Buckner Creel, president of the Graduate and Professional Students Association, said he doesn't see tuition and fees raising more than 7.3 percent.
He said he doesn't necessarily endorse that amount, but he accepts it.
"Ideally, tuition and fees will go up zero percent," he said. "I would endorse that, but I'll accept the reality of the situation."
GPSA is also asking for $972,000 to help pay for more graduate teaching assistants on campus. That would be another 1 percent tuition increase, bringing the total to 8.3 percent.
He doesn't expect GPSA to get that money, he said, but the group would approve of the increase if it passed.
University Libraries will have to cancel $750,000 worth of scholarly journals next year if they don't get more funding.
Camila Alire, dean of University Libraries, said there is no room in the department's budget for the inflation costs of journals and books. The library receives about $260,000 a year from the Student Fee Review Board for materials. That is out of a total budget of $11 million.
Each group at the summit, except ASUNM, is supporting at least a 1 percent increase in tuition and fees, which comes out to $900,000, to help fund the library. That money would not only go toward journals and books, Alire said. It will also help fund technology, like computers and online resources.
Christopher Smith, president of Faculty Senate, said his group endorses a 6.3 percent tuition increase to help offset rising utility costs and to fund University libraries.
Faculty Senate would also like $328,603, or a 0.3 percent increase in tuition and fess, to increase the employer contribution to health care coverage from 70 percent to 80 percent. This would only apply to employees making up to $30,000 a year, he said.
"Those people pay the same amount for health insurance and everybody else and don't make nearly as much," Smith said.
Faculty Senate is not asking students to pay more than the 4.5 percent compensation increase mandated by the state, Smith said. He described that amount as "a little better than treading water."
Smith said tuition should not increase more than 6.3 percent next year.
"Students have suffered under a double-digit increase for the past two years," he said. "A 9.9 increase is slicing it up finely enough so it isn't double-digit, but it really is."
After the summit, the president's office will come up a proposed tuition increase to present to the UNM Board of Regents for approval at its April meeting.
