Tuition raising source of income, debate

Anne Gleason
The Daily Illini

Students will no longer face the same levels of uncertainty in tuition issues — unlike previous years — after a series of changes this summer.

When students ended the spring semester they were left in the dark about how much costs would go up, even though a tuition increase was inevitable. The state's $5 billion budget deficit meant the University would lose funding.

But students did not learn until June that tuition would increase by 5 percent this fall. University officials plan to change that, setting tuition in November for next year, said Vice President for Academic Affairs Chester Gardner.

"Students will know well in advance what the tuition levels will be," Gardner said.

Also, freshmen entering the University in the fall of 2004 will be the first class to feel the effects of the "truth in tuition" legislation approved by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in July. The bill guarantees that tuition levels for each class will stay the same for all four years of college.

"It's an important thing to be able to help families plan and save for their child," said Abby Ottenhoff, spokeswoman for Blagojevich. "Tuition has increased, sometimes in the double digits, year after year."

Gardner said while tuition levels will stay constant for each class with the new legislation, the total amount of tuition paid by continuing and incoming students will end up being the same.

He said, for instance, if the University projected that tuition should increase by 5 percent every year over the four years that a student attends the University, incoming freshmen would face a 13.14 percent increase their first year.

Provost Richard Herman said Blagojevich's plan assumes constant budget, which officials don't predict for the coming years.

"If you frontload by 13.1 percent that's equivalent to 5 percent over four years," Herman said. "Now the problem of course is when you frontload and you don't increase, you assume some stability in your budget and if some disaster, some financial disaster should befall the state ... you'd be in a situation of not being able to go back and raise tuition for existing students."

Ottenhoff said the legislation provides predictability for families, but is also directed at University administrators.

"Hopefully the University will think about how to use their resources and look at other areas to cut, rather than raise tuition," she said. "(This forces them) to look at ways to be more effective with the funds."

The 5 percent tuition increase for fall 2003 will generate $30 million to help offset the loss of $58 million in state appropriations this year. Students will pay $133 more each semester with the increase.

But the other $28 million will be coming from cuts across the campus, despite pleas from many University faculty, staff, students, officials and parents that tuition be increased more to save programs and courses.

Gardner estimated that Universitywide about 900 positions will have to be eliminated this year — approximately 450 of those positions would be on the Urbana campus. The eliminated positions would include about 100 faculty jobs at Urbana.

About 800 course sections will also be eliminated, including 400 sections in Urbana, Gardner estimated.

"Students are going to face larger classes," he said. "There are limits to how much we can increase the size of a class, so students will have a more difficult time signing up for classes."

Discovery courses for the spring semester have been eliminated already.

Gardner also said things that might not affect students directly, such as reductions in the number of maintenance jobs, have already had direct impacts — the Illini Union reading library closed this summer, for example.

The board opted for a 5 percent increase in tuition this summer, rather than the 8 percent increase that was initially recommended by University officials.

Although students will feel an impact with the budget cuts, Student Trustee Nate Allen said he believed the 5 percent tuition increase was adequate for this year.

"(The board) was comfortable with the 5 percent increase, which was modest compared to other institutions," Allen said. "It was uncertain to me what that additional 3 percent would provide for students."

However, Allen told Daily Illini editors he was in favor of an increase higher than 5 percent last spring, when he conducted a survey asking students how they felt about possible tuition increases.

Two thirds of students voted in favor of the 8 percent increase.

Allen said he would also be in contact with students this fall as the University is determining what tuition levels should be set at in fall 2004.

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