Students at Arizona’s universities will know next week if they will have to pay tuition surcharges for the next school year.

For ASU students, surcharges could add $1,200 to the cost of tuition each year. The price could be $1,100 for UA students. But if approved next Thursday by the Arizona Board of Regents, NAU students may only face a $350 surcharge, and many have a guarantee that they will not have to pay it.

NAU spokeswoman Lisa Nelson said the university took an extremely cautious approach to its tuition surcharge after working with officials across the state to determine the best amount.

“[Our goal is] to be really sensitive to the economy and its impact on students and families,” Nelson said. “[We’re] taking a very conservative approach.”

NAU President John Haeger initially proposed annual program fees for the university’s nursing, dental hygiene and physical therapy programs in addition to the surcharge, but this week decided to drop those from the proposal, Nelson said.

This move followed ASU’s decision to keep program fees out of its proposal earlier this month in favor of a more general and less permanent source of revenue.

A total of 5,200 NAU students are exempt from the $350 surcharge because they enrolled in a guaranteed-tuition program, which promises tuition will not increase within the time a student is
expected to complete his or her degree.

These students will have to pay a proposed technology fee increase, which would bring the fee total up to $72 per year.

NAU expects to generate about $4 million in revenue through the proposed surcharge, which will cover a portion of the $21.3 million budget cuts earlier this year.

Nelson said a lower dollar amount was chosen because officials figured a lesser impact over a longer period of time was more important in this economy.

“We’re looking out three [or] four years in hopes that we’ll see some improvements in the economy,” she said. “Maybe the impact to students and families can be over a period of time.”

But when assessing the surcharge differences from one university to the next, Nelson said it’s important to remember all three institutions have different missions and needs.

ASU President Michael Crow said ASU needs a larger surcharge because it took the largest cuts in the state and lost all state funding for growth between 2006 and 2008, which was much larger than
either UA or NAU.

ASU’s greater number of specialty programs also increases the need for more money, he said.

“We have large numbers of specialty students in very expensive programs,” Crow said.

Some money from the overall surcharge will be used to maintain enrollment in these higher-cost programs, and the rest will help fill what the state cut this year, he said.

But regardless of the costs, members of the Arizona Students’ Association oppose tuition surcharges.

“Regardless of the size of the tuition surcharge, it’s still going to price out students,” said Michael Wong, a member of ASA’s legislative board. “If the surcharge at NAU were at any level close to ASU or UA, it would price out exponentially more students.”

Wong said NAU’s surcharge may appear to be more appealing to students of UA or ASU, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

“It’s one of those things where it’s not our job to attempt to balance the universities’ budgets,” he said.

Reach the reporter at adam.sneed@asu.edu.