LITTLE ROCK — University of Central Arkansas President Allen Meadors said Thursday that he has dropped a plan to reduce out-of-state tuition that was aimed at attracting more non-Arkansans to the university.
Meadors said he changed his mind after the idea drew criticism from some state legislators. He said the lawmakers had the mistaken impression that the proposed reduction was driving a parallel proposal to increase in-state tuition.
“There is absolutely no connection between the two in any form or fashion,”Meadors said. “But we just didn’t want to confuse people. And the impression was there.”
The University of Central Arkansas board of trustees is to vote on Meadors’ new tuition and fees proposal today.
State Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett and the Senate Education Committee chairman, said Thursday that Meadors surprised legislators by unexpectedly announcing the change of course at a Wednesday meeting at the state Capitol.
Jeffress said lawmakers who largely opposed the idea of lowering outof-state tuition were about to aggressively question Meadors about the proposal.
“I know it wasn’t, but it seemed like that decision was made on split-second notice,” Jeffress said. “It did seem humorous at the time.
“I think most of us were pleased they decided not to do that.”
Under the new proposal, UCA will continue charging out-of-state students about double the tuition paid by in-state undergraduate students, currently $173.50 per credit hour.
In-state undergraduate students would now pay a dollar more at $174.50 per credit hour, and out-of-state students would pay $349 per credit hour in the new proposal.
Under the abandoned proposal, out-of-state tuition would have been reduced to $87.25 more per credit hour than the proposed in-state rate, or $261.75 per credit hour.
That would have been $85.25 less per credit hour than the $347 per credit hour that out-of-state students pay this year.
That proposed reduction caught legislators’ attention.
“At the same time that they were increasing tuition and fees for in-state students, they were then giving a break on what was the practice for outof-state tuition,” Jeffress said. “I felt like that was not really the thing to be doing for Arkansas taxpayers.”
Meadors said he wanted to lower the out-of-state tuition to attract more students from outside Arkansas to UCA.
He said about 5 percent of UCA’s about 12,000 students come from outside Arkansas. The majority come from neighboring Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee.
About 30 percent of students at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and about 10 percent of students at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro are from out of state.
Meadors said the number of traditional out-of-state students that UCA attracts is even smaller after considering that about half of that 5 percent are recruited athletes.
Meadors said he wants UCA’s out-of-state student count to grow closer to 10 percent. And he wants to attract students from outside the immediate region, from states such as Florida, New York and California.
Attracting U.S. citizens from states outside Arkansas adds to the “cultural diversity” on campus, Meadors said.
It also prepares graduates for employment after college, when many will work with others who come from other parts of the country, he said.
“Our students have to go out into the marketplace and compete with people from everywhere,” Meadors said. “And there’s a whole lot different, culturally, growing up in New York than in Alma, Arkansas.”
Meadors said cutting outof-state tuition would also have likely netted UCA more revenue.
Meadors projected the lowered tuition would have attracted an additional 100 out-of-state students annually. Even paying the lowered tuition, an extra 100 out-of-state students would have netted the university about $700,000 more in revenue each year, Meadors said.
Diane Newton, UCA’s vice president of finance and administration, said UCA did not build its 2010-11 budget with the expectation of collecting that additional revenue.
Jim Purcell, the director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, said by email Thursday that Meadors’ decision to pull the proposal was “good news.”
Purcell said Arkansas colleges and universities should emphasize the recruitment of Arkansans.
He agreed with Meadors that out-of-state students add to the educational experience of resident students but said UCA can recruit them in other ways.
“Educational tourism can be beneficial to the state when the price point is at an appropriate level,” Purcell said. “I believe UCA has a lot to offer students beyond price.”
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 05/07/2010