During a March 12 meeting, the Board of Regents proposed an initial budget which called for a 3 percent tuition increase for next year and a $77 increase in fees. The Board of Regents increased tuition 5.5 percent for the 2011-2012 school year, 7.9 percent in 2010-2011 and 5 percent in 2009-2010, which makes the proposed increase in tuition the lowest in recent years. The Board of Regents has yet to finalize either the tuition or fee increases and will discuss the budget further on March 23 before approving the final budget April 27.
Fees have been dropping. In the 2009-2010 school year, students paid $514 per semester; the following year fees fell to $486.80 and have stayed consistent since then.
With recommendation from the Student Fee Review Board, the fees could go as high as $503.20. If both the SFRB’s recommendations and the regents’ proposal are approved, fees could be at $580 next year.
The Daily Lobo sat down with Vice President of the Board of Regents Don Chalmers to discuss the proposed increases. Chalmers said a 3 percent increase in tuition is needed for the University to be able to compete with its peers. Chalmers said the Provost’s Academic Strategic Plan, an initiative that includes hiring 20 tenure-track professors and undergraduate advisers, requires funding to be successful and that these funds will come need to come from somewhere. The tuition increase would also go toward a 1.25 percent increase in pay for instructors and more funding for Athletics and UNM Libraries.
Daily Lobo: What do you hope to accomplish with this proposed tuition-and-fee increase?
Don Chalmers: Hopefully we will make the University a better place by fully funding, hopefully, the Provost Academic Strategic Plan. I think that’s extremely important and will advance the University academically.
DL: Why did this happen over spring break?
DC: We have meetings scheduled at all times. We did not take action (on the tuition-and-fee increase on March 12). As far as I’m concerned there was certainly nothing wrong with having a meeting on (March 12). We try to be as transparent as we can and any action that we take will not have taken place during any spring break.
DL: Why does the funding for the Provost’s Academic Plan have to come from student fees and tuition?
DC: It doesn’t come from fees. The Provost Strategic Plan’s funding all comes from general funding, I&G funding from the state, or funds that we get per tuition dollar. We’re spending about $4.2 million on the Provost’s plan. Most of the money that has to be spent is normal inflation in a budget, those dollars have to come from someplace. They come from operating budget funds which come from state funding and tuition.
DL: Is it true the increase would help pay for a $1.5 million loan to Athletics in an effort to eliminate departmental debt?
DC: There is a proposal to loan money to help the Athletics Department get out of the red and we certainly would never do that unless there was a plan to pay that money back. There’s been a lot of speculation about a new conference that would be formed and hopefully part of that new conference alignment would include new monies coming into the University as members of the conference.
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DL: In reference to the proposed 1.25 percent increase in pay for instructors that would be paid for with the tuition hike, who does that benefit specifically?
DC: I cannot answer that question directly we (regents) do not deal in the details of that. That’s the administration’s job to do that. It’s our job to say, after three years of no increases, we’d like to see some increases as best we can for the people who work at UNM. There is money in there for teaching assistants.
DL: Some students say they cannot afford more than a $100 increase in tuition. What would you say to those students?
DC: We’re trying to hold down as best we can tuition. If you would benchmark the University of New Mexico’s tuition versus all the other peer group universities in the country and around our area especially, you would see that UNM is lower than everybody else.
There’s been proposal, and I’m in favor of this, coming from the Student Fee Review Board and tuition committee, saying that maybe we ought to take 20 percent of any increase (and) set (it) aside to come back to students as need-based scholarship or need-based help. We’re not going to sacrifice quality at the same time.
