ASU President Michael Crow told students Thursday he plans to keep tuition increases low as the state prepares to chop university funding.
In an open forum organized by Undergraduate Student Government at the West campus, Crow said the budget cuts to the University will be large, but the administration would work to keep tuition prices down without compromising education.
“When we make our tuition proposal in a few weeks, we won’t ask for all of those cuts to be replaced by tuition, only a fraction of those cuts would be,” Crow said, adding that tuition would cover less than half the cuts.
Gov. Jan Brewer proposed a $170 million cut to the university system in January. At a special Arizona Board of Regents meeting held Tuesday on the Tempe campus, the regents said the final number could be even greater.
ASU’s portion of the cut could be about $80 million, Crow said. From that $80 million, about $50 million would require budget reductions, or changes in the institution, and about $30 million would come from tuition.
ASU’s official tuition proposal will be released March 18 and regents will vote on it at a meeting in April.
At Tuesday’s regents meeting, Crow said the University could manage the cuts by increasing tuition $450 for most undergraduates.
On Thursday, Crow explained different ways the administration is working to keep quality of education high and tuition costs low, including reducing administrative support services as a way to fix the budget, but he didn’t elaborate.
Some students attended the forum in person at the La Sala Ballroom on the West campus, while others asked their questions from other campuses via webcam over the live ASU website.
The questions varied in length and topic, but most seemed to gravitate toward the forthcoming education budget cuts.
Kirby Mauro, a communications senior, asked a question about a personal project. She asked Crow if he could update her on any more progress that had been made toward replacing animal teaching methods with alternative methods.
“I have asked him a couple of times at these events for updates,” Mauro said.
Crow said teachers were reasserting alternative teaching methods that achieved the same level of education but were more humane.
Reach the reporter at samuel.lane@asu.edu
