In an effort to reduce Arizona’s ongoing budget deficit, Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday recommended cutting $170 million from the university system’s budget next year, including taking about $80 million from ASU’s state funding.
Although the budget proposal has not yet been approved by the Legislature, discussions of tuition increases for next academic year have already begun.
Presidents of all three state universities will submit their tuition increase requests to the Arizona Board of Regents in March, and former U.S. Senator and current Regent Dennis DiConcini said he expects to see large increases.
“We don’t know exactly what the presidents (of the universities) are going to propose,” DiConcini said. “We will just have to wait and see how they handle the amount they are going to be cut again by the Legislature.”
Since the start of fiscal year 2008, Arizona’s three universities have sustained about $400 million in cuts. As a result, state funding has decreased 46 percent per student in that time.
ASU President Michael Crow expressed his concerns regarding the budget in an e-mail to ASU leadership on Saturday.
“The governor’s recommended state investment reductions for higher education and ASU specifically are large and will be very challenging,” Crow said. “In fact, this level of reduction will set our state investment per student back to levels of the 1960s.”
With such large cuts, tuition increases will be necessary to maintain the quality of education found at Arizona universities, particularly with the current growth rate of enrollment, DiConcini said.
In his e-mail, Crow confirmed the need for tuition and fee increases, among other changes, in order to cover the financial losses.
“In approaching this financial uncertainty we will follow the overarching argument of ‘do no harm’ to our students,” he said. “They are why we are here and our first order of priority. In doing no harm we need to focus all the energy we can on student success, retention and graduation.”
Arizona Students’ Association Director Elma Delic said the organization is concerned how the cuts will directly affect students and their families.
“The universities and the Arizona Board of Regents have been forced to place an increasing burden on students,” she said. “ASA is going to work to ensure that it won’t be placed on students. We want to make sure there’s a chance to receive affordable higher education in Arizona.”
The process of determining tuition each year takes several months, and no final decisions will be reached until April.
ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg said no specific information regarding ASU tuition will be available for several weeks.
“It’s a decent size cut and I know the Board and universities will be working over the next few weeks to figure out how to deal with it,” ABOR spokeswoman Katie Paquet said. “The regents are concerned about maintaining affordable education in Arizona, and high quality education in Arizona.”
Brewer’s budget recommendation also includes cutting funding for community colleges by $72.9 million.
“The state’s leadership has not yet been able to prioritize the value of higher education into their financial investment model,” Crow said. “We will continue to make our case as to why it is an important economic, social and legally required investment. Let me also say that I have high confidence in our collective ability to weather any storm and transit any challenge.”
Reach the reporter at keshoult@asu.edu
