After a long discussion and debate, the Arizona Board of Regents voted Thursday to approve the tuition and fee proposals of all three state universities.
ASU students will see increases between $1,198 and $1,775 in tuition next year, depending on class rank and residency classification.
These increases range between 12 and 20 percent, and place incoming resident freshman tuition at $9,208, and nonresident undergraduate tuition at $21,807.
Graduate students are facing the largest tuition price tag, with residents paying more than $9,700 compared to $8,509 this year, and out-of-state students paying more than $23,800, up from about $22,000.
The Board also voted to approve ASU’s fee proposal, with the requirement that the University absorb an additional $6 million in cuts.
ASU’s proposal included several differential tuition requests for programs such as nursing, business, engineering and life sciences, among others, to help cover the expenses of delivering these higher-cost majors.
Historically, these increased costs have applied only to juniors and seniors in the programs, with the justification that these students are more likely to enroll in high-cost upper division classes and use additional services like career counseling.
However, ASU ran a pilot program last year to see how extending the fee to underclassmen would affect the quality of several programs.
“Everything was successful in the pilot,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “We’re attempting to make the University more successful, and we now see these fees can [do that]. It would be negatively affecting thousands of students not to continue it.”
In addition, Provost Betty Capaldi said students have expressed their support for extending the fees.
“Students in these majors are in support of these fees for freshmen and sophomores because they benefit from using the services,” she said.
Because of this success, the University asked to extend differential tuition in many programs to all enrolled students.
Several of the regents remained opposed to this idea.
“Why can’t we give freshmen and sophomores a break?” Regent Dennis DeConcini said. “They may not want to go to nursing school by their junior year.”
A large portion of the day’s discussion revolved around whether to approve NAU’s and UA’s tuition proposals.
Some regents wanted to require the two universities to use funds in their financial reserves to offset reduced state funding and return to the Board with requests for smaller tuition increases if necessary.
Because of its rapid growth and debts accumulated before the recession, ASU’s reserves were not large enough to consider this option.
ABOR Chairwoman Anne Mariucci said ABOR and the universities have a responsibility to act on behalf of students and their families and use the reserves to limit tuition increases.
“When we look outside, it may not be a rainy day today, but it’s certainly been a rainy year for students and parents,” she said. “When we have rainy day funds, as we do at two institutions, it’s only fair to look at using them.”
For the sake of simplicity, the regents voted to pass both proposals as written, but require the universities to use reserves to provide a rebate to each student rather than request two new proposals that would have to be considered later.
UA students will receive a one-time rebate of $750, while incoming NAU students will receive a rebate of $350 this year only.
Most continuing NAU students are enrolled in a program that guarantees their tuition will not increase during the four years they are enrolled. These students will not receive the rebate because their tuition will not be going up.
This strategy will also keep the “sticker price,” or official published tuition, of ASU and UA similar while limiting the out-of-pocket increase for UA students.
If ASU’s proposal were to be approved while UA was required to return with a lower request after incorporating reserves into its budget, UA’s sticker price could be as much as $1,000 lower, when in reality students at both institutions would be paying similar amounts in either situation.
By using reserves in this manner, the Board will also send a message to the state Legislature about the severity of the financial position the state budget cuts have caused the universities, Regent Rick Myers said.
“It’s an aggressive way to address the costs,” he said. “By accepting the proposals from all three presidents, we recognize we are still moving toward [our long-term] 2020 goals and recognizing they are still taking real cuts. Most importantly it shows the Legislature we are using our rainy day fund.”
Regents were also hesitant to approve requests for increased room and board rates on top of increasing tuition and fees.
ASU requested a 3 percent increase, UA a 7 percent increase and NAU a 4 percent increase.
“There is no way on God’s green earth you can justify to me a 7 percent increase in housing in this kind of market,” Regent Mark Killian said. “It’s ridiculous. I can guarantee you not one apartment complex in this area has seen that kind of increase in its rent in the last year.”
However, Crow maintained the increase was necessary.
“The increase has to do with an increased energy costs and increased food costs. Those are items going up in the market, and they are part of this proposal,” he said.
The regents voted to postpone their decision on room and board rates until Friday, when the universities could provide more details as to how the money would be spent.
Overall, Killian said approving the proposals is all about finding the right balance.
“I don’t like this, and I like it,” Killian said after the final vote. “The fact that we’re using reserves, I think sends a message to folks that were not just going to accept a huge increase in tuition, and I think that’s important.
“On the other hand, I really struggle with increases in tuition at all, especially in this economy. But the Legislature has given us no choice.”
Reach the reporter at kshoult@asu.edu
Story corrected: This story has been changed due to an editing error. Graduate students will not endure the largest tuition increases, but will have the highest tuition amounts compared to other ASU students.