LITTLE ROCK — Student tuition and fees will rise at University of Arkansas System campuses across the state.
The University of Arkansas board of trustees approved Friday increases ranging from 3.21 percent to 5.28 percent at four-year universities for the 2012-13 academic year.
Trustees also approved tuition and fee increases for other campuses in the UA System, including increases of between 1.94 percent and 3.67 percent for the five community colleges.
UA System President Donald Bobbitt said he had asked chancellors to keep tuition-increase requests within a percentage point of the consumer price index — around 3.3 percent.
But, he said, some campuses had to ask for slightly higher increases because “flat” state appropriations haven’t kept pace with their enrollment growth. The UA System, the largest in the state, educates about 70,000 students.
“It’s not to find fault with anyone, but it’s just to say this is what’s happening around the country,” Bobbitt said. “If you have flat funding and more students, you divide that pie into more pieces, and the amount available per student goes down.”
In previous years, UA campuses have set tuition in May. This year, they were the first four-year public institutions in the state to set new rates.
The new rates increased tuition and fees 5.28 percent at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for an annual cost of $7,553 for a resident taking 15 hours each semester.
Under the new rates, a similar student would pay $5,436 at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, $5,517 at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, $5,560 at the University of Arkansas at Monticello and $7,343 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The actual amount will vary depending on a student’s course of study, which can affect fees, for example.
At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, tuition for an in-state medical student will increase from $19,058 to $20,202 annually. Annual tuition for an undergraduate nursing student will increase from $5,568 to $5,688. The UAMS rates do not include fees.
Trustee Carl Johnson of Little Rock asked how Arkansas tuition compared with other states’.
UA-Fayetteville Chancellor G. David Gearhart said that despite the change, tuition and fees at the state’s largest campus remain lower than those at such institutions in most other states.
“You’re getting a good bargain,” he said. “We’re trying to keep our costs as low as possible without compromising quality.”
Chancellors said the new revenue will help cover growing costs in the areas of energy and employee pay and benefits.
At the University of Arkansas at Monticello, for example, the cost of employee health insurance is up 10 percent.
Gearhart said increases in utilities and fringe benefits would cost more than $1 million each. Every percentage point increase in employee pay will cost $1 million on top of that, quickly eating up the $5 million UA expects to generate through its tuition and fee increase.
Bobbitt said inflation and falling state appropriations per student have combined to give Arkansas colleges and universities less spending power now than they had 20 years ago, despite annual tuition increases.
Four-year universities in the UA System received an average of $7,019 per student in state appropriations in 2008-09, a figure system leaders expect to fall to about $6,100 per student once enrollment figures are finalized for 2011-12.
Arkansas lawmakers approved a total higher education budget of about $730 million for the 2012-13 academic year, which included a $3.63 million increase.
That increase will be distributed among the colleges and universities that have the lowest percentage of their state appropriation needs covered under a state formula. That will include UA campuses in Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock.
It would have taken a $63.54 million state funding increase to bring all institutions up to 75 percent of their formula-calculated needs, the Department of Higher Education said.
Trustees said it was difficult to raise tuition, but they understood the reasoning behind the chancellors’ proposals.
Chancellors have committed to focusing new money on efforts to boost student retention and keep faculty salaries competitive, Bobbitt said.
Arkansas’ 2011 average faculty salary of $61,000 is lower than any of the 16 other states tracked by the Southern Regional Education Board, which have a combined average faculty salary of about $74,000.
That difference can’t be made up solely through tuition increases, Bobbitt said.
“In the future, I will need to have an honest conversation with the chancellors about prioritization and reallocation within the campuses,” he said.
Chancellors may look at expanding distance education or using buildings at off-peak hours to reduce facilities’ expenses and overhead, Bobbitt said.
The UA System’s increases for the 2012-13 academic year fall below last year’s increases of 5.9 percent to 7.1 percent, which were higher than in recent years.
The board will consider in May campus budgets that will detail more specifically how leaders will spend revenue collected from tuition and fees.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/31/2012