SAU’s tuition to go up in fall

Southern Arkansas University students will pay 3.8 percent more in tuition and fees for the 2016-17 school year, school officials said.

The increase will raise the per-semester cost for the average in-state SAU-Magnolia undergraduate student taking 30-credit hours to approximately $8,181 — or a $300 increase — over two semesters, according to figures from the university.

Students on the Magnolia campus had been paying about $7,896 in in-state tuition over the 2015-16 school year, the university said.

Trustees approved the rates Thursday during a regularly scheduled board meeting in Camden.

SAU, like other universities in Arkansas, has been raising tuition and fees for several years. Last year, SAU increased tuition by 3.13 percent. Since 2012, the university has raised rates by nearly 10 percent, according to data provided by the university.

The increases are attributed, in part, to stagnant funding from the state while the school increases spending on facility improvements to accommodate a growing number of students. Last year, SAU saw a 16 percent expansion in enrollment of its now 4,100-strong student body — a pattern that has remained steady over the past three years.

The uptick in tuition has concerned state lawmakers who routinely decide between increasing the amount of money budgeted for higher education or seeing those costs passed to students. And for several years, students have paid the price. State data shows that expenditure on higher education has hovered at about 16 percent of the state’s budget for the past decade.

“Anytime there are budget cuts, the first thing to be cut is higher education because we can cut that without any damage to the citizens — we know [universities] can get their money by raising tuition,” said Johnnie Roebuck, a member of the Southern Regional Education Board and former Democratic state representative from Arkadelphia. “I understand that they are in a really hard place, because we do not support higher ed the way we should.”

Upcoming Events