The CU administration and the Board of Regents are in the process of establishing a raise in tuition that will be voted on and determined in April.
Last month, the administration proposed a 15.7 percent tuition increase—which would affect residents, out-of-state students, undergrads and graduate students—for the 2012-2013 school year.
However, CU spokesperson Ken McConnellogue said the regents have asked the administration to go back to the drawing board.
The CU administration and Board of Regents have proposed a raise in tuition cost for the incoming 2012-2013 freshmen. (CU Independent/Josh Shettler)
“The regents aren’t interested in the initial proposal,” McConnellogue said. “So we’re going to bring them two separate, different proposals that are being developed right now and will be ready sometime in March.”
According to CU’s Office of Planning, Budget, and Analysis, the current tuition for in-state students is $7,672 per school year, a 9.3 percent increase from the 2010-2011 school year. For non-residents, tuition is $28,850, a 3 percent increase from the 2010-2011 school year.
“Right now, a full-time student at Boulder pays for the amount of credit hours taken, up to 11.25 hours,” McConnellogue said. “The proposal before the board was to move what is called ‘linearity’—to gradually charge students for each credit they take.”
Had the proposal been approved, students would be paying for 15 credit hours by 2014. Though rates vary among programs like arts and sciences, the business school and the engineering school, all CU students would have seen an increase in tuition.
The Board of Regents turned down the proposal, asking the administration to provide other ideas and create a plan possibly incorporating the university’s guaranteed tuition rate, which is currently in place for out-of-state undergrads. The guaranteed rate allows students to predict accurately the total costs of their four-year CU education and to budget accordingly.
McConnellogue said the regents requested a hybrid of linearity and guaranteed tuition, but nothing else about the new proposals is known.
“They just want to see other models,” McConnellogue said. “Nothing is set in stone at this point.”
Tuition increases and re-examinations of the University’s financial policies are by no means unique to CU. Zach Ward, a CU graduate student and economics professor in Boulder, emphasized the impact the economy has had on higher education nationwide.
“In the past couple of years, tuition rates have increased significantly more at public universities than at private universities,” Ward said. “The big reason for this is because state budgets have been squeezed due to lower tax revenues from the recession, which requires tough decisions to be made at the state level for which programs to cut if they want a pseudo-balanced budget. Generally, it is more politically feasible to give cuts to higher education than primary education or other welfare programs.”
Colorado has struggled in the past with higher education funding. Education Week, an online journalism organization, ranks the state 43rd out of 50 states based on taxable resources spent on education, district funding and comparisons with national averages of education spending.
But college continues to be something people are willing to pay for, despite financial difficulties.
“Right now the premium for a bachelor’s degree over a high school diploma is 54 percent, and advanced degrees over a high school diploma is 110 percent,” Ward said. “Universities can leverage this into getting people to pay more money, since the benefits of a college degree are so large.”
Because the economy continues to reward education — wages for those with a college education consistently rise faster than those with only a high school education — universities can justify raising tuition. But as tuition continues to increase, more issues arise.
“It’s possible that we are perpetuating inequality if tuition increases are significant enough to decrease enrollment for lower-income individuals,” Ward said.
McConnellogue said that changes in tuition are based off of the university’s overall budget, and that several variables are taken into account when making a decision regarding increase.
“The regents look at the budget every year and determine if we need to increase costs and make investments,” McConnellogue said. “Costs are increasing, and we need to make sure we continue to provide quality education.”
Ethan Dwares, a 20-year-old sophomore history major, said that he wouldn’t be pleased with a raise in the cost of tuition.
“I already pay $21,000 more than in-state students do,” Dwares said. “I love CU and would never dream of going anywhere else, but an increase in tuition would be a huge problem for my financial stability.”
Students will have to wait until spring to find out exactly how much they will pay in years to come, but they will likely have to adjust to greater costs.
“Research has shown time and time again that education is extremely important for future outcomes,” Ward said. “My guess is that inflation for college tuition will remain high for quite a while, as long as there is such a high premium for college education.”
Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Annie Melton at Anne.melton@colorado.edu.
