Thursday, December 6, 1990
Crisis means price hikes for thousands
(CPS) Students will be
paying higher prices for classes,
some as soon as next month,
various campuses have
announced.
The funding emergencies that
have crippled states across the
country have forced a number of
campuses to impose unusual
midyear tuition hikes.
As a result, hundreds of
thousands of students will be
writing bigger tuition checks for
spring term than they wrote for
fall term.
Massachusetts students will
take the biggest hit, paying as
much as $625 more for spring
semester at most of the
commonwealth's public
campuses. It could have been
worse. Voters Nov. 6 defeated a
proposal that would have rolled
back all taxes and fees to 1988
levels.
In New York, North Carolina,
California and Virginia, students
at some campuses will pay more
this spring in the form of
emergency fees, tuition increases
or special "user" fees for anything
from health care to the right to
use computer labs.
Additionally, students at the
University of North Dakota, St.
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Minnesota, Loyola University in
New Orleans and the University
of California-Davis could end up
paying more this spring for
various services,
"There's going to be some
(more) for sure," declared Richard
Novak of the American
Association of State Colleges and
Universities, a Washington,
D.C.-based group.
Many students, however,
resent the increases, saying
they've been unfairly targeted.
"Every time we pay more, we
don't get anything back,"
complained Massachusetts
College of Arts student Kirsten
Friar.
Others say the campuses
should trim the budget by cutting
jobs of high-paid administrators.
Higher Fees, Too
"It's really obvious there is a
lot of fat at the administrative
level," said David Topitzer, a
student government member at
the University of Massachusetts-
Boston, whose spring tuition bill
is up $4OO over fall's.
Following a "temporary
legislative surcharge" of $41.50
levied on all students in the
University of North Carolina
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The Collegian
system, students at Appalachian
State University may be hit with
a $270 increase in fees for
athletics, health services, student
activities, student union
expansion and textbook rental.
Similarly, students at the
State University of New York
system may have to pay $5O
- more next semester.
The tuition hike would help
offset an anticipated cut in funds
as the state tries to reduce
spending .to close a growing
budget gap.
Earlier this fall SUNY
trustees decided to charge students
at 26 of the system's 34
campuses $5O per semester for
health services. And in late
September, University of Buffalo
students got a new mandatory
$5O per semester fee to ride buses
the three miles between the north
and south campuses.
Public campuses in Virginia
were the first to announce mid
year tuition hikes, hoping to
plug a $1.4 billion hole in their
two-year budget.
The price hikes in
Massachusetts were emergency
measures, maintained Peter
Chisholm of the state's Board of
Regents.
Over the last three years, he
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The
has
positions open
noted, state funding for higher
education there has dropped by
$l6O-$l7O million.
This year across-the-board
cuts, coupled with budget
revisions, have left the state's 29
campuses with a $5O million
shortfall.
"Only in the most dire
situations do they occur," said
Novak of the midyear price hikes.
By all accounts, this is one of
the most dire years on record in
terms of state funding of higher
education. The rate of increase in
state support for higher education
is at a 30-year low, according to a
mid-October study by the Center
for Higher Education at Illinois
State University.
States will spend $40.8
billion in 1990-91, 11.6 percent
more than they did two years ago.
It's barely enough to keep up
with inflation, the study found.
At least a dozen states --
Arizona, California, Florida,
Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi,
Nebraska, New York, North
Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia
and Washington -- are facing
funding crises.
Many state legislatures, hurt
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A Tax Problem
and Commuter
for the spring
Page
by slowing sales tax revenues,
lower-than-expected income tax
receipts and slow economic
growth, don't have as much
money to allocate as they'd
anticipated.
In addition to price hikes,
many campuses are drastically
cutting services.
The SUNY system, for
example, in mid-November put
an immediate freeze on all sorts
of transactions, including most
out-of-state travel, all in-state
travel, equipment purchases,
contracts for any outside services
and the filling of any permanent
or temporary position.
If anything, emergency price
hikes often help send a message
to the public and state legislators
about the situation in higher
education, Novak said.
In Illinois, he said, wildly
unpopular budget cuts that forced
midyear tuition hikes two years
ago prompted state legislators to
implement a temporary increase
in the state income tax. The new
tax in turn amounted to a 22-
percent two-year rise in state
support for higher education.
The mid-year price hike,
Novak said, "definitely played a
part."
senator
semester.