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Regents OK tuition hike of 9.3% for CU-Boulder

Many students face $1,300 more in overall costs

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 22, 2008 at 11 p.m.

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Stephanie Chen, a first-year law student at the University of Colorado, fills out loan papers Tuesday. Incoming law students face about a 20 percent tuition increase.

Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky

Stephanie Chen, a first-year law student at the University of Colorado, fills out loan papers Tuesday. Incoming law students face about a 20 percent tuition increase.

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The 9.3 percent tuition increase approved Tuesday for University of Colorado-Boulder students is the latest example of financial hardship caused by years of reduced state funding while salaries and expenses at the school have surged.

Many Colorado students at the Boulder campus will have to pay more than $1,300 a year more for tuition, room and board and fees next fall.

The tuition hike at Boulder is just below the cap allowed by the state legislature and 11 percent lower than the average tuition at peer universities, CU officials said.

They also say that rising class fees are necessary to cover state-mandated increases in salaries and benefits at a time when the other main source of funding, state general fund dollars, hasn't reached the level it was five years ago.

CU officials said state funding is about $1,000 less per student than in 2002, while operating spending went up 66 percent.

"If you look at us and you look at our peers, we're very competitive," new CU President Bruce Benson said Monday.

Given statutory constraints and limits on funding, "we don't have a lot of choice" but to raise tuition, Benson said.

Regents vote 7-2

The CU Board of Regents voted 7-2 Monday to approve tuition increases recommended last week by Benson with the support of chancellors at the Denver, Boulder, Aurora and Colorado Springs campuses. The combined enrollment at all campuses is 53,500.

Regents Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs, and Tom Lucero, R-Johnstown, voted against the tuition increases.

Hybl said he opposed the tuition increase because he prefers to see expenses paid for by more state funding. He also wants to reduce costs through narrowing missions at each of the campuses "rather than doing a little bit of everything."

"With that said, public higher education in the state of Colorado, when compared to its peers as far as tuition goes, is still very affordable," he said. "That doesn't do much to help those who are paying the bills."

Tuition for Colorado students attending CU-Boulder this fall will rise 9.3 percent compared with the current school year. That amounts to about $500 more per year - or a total of just below $6,000 - for Boulder's College of Arts and Science students who live in Colorado.

Low-income students from Colorado, who constitute about one-quarter of all undergraduate students at Boulder, face only a 5 percent increase, or about $270 more a year.

Rates of tuition increases at other campuses are generally not as high for Colorado students.

The notable exception is for incoming law and MBA students, who face about a 20 percent rise in tuition for the first year. The cost goes down the next year.

Students also face higher costs for room and board and fees. Boulder students will pay about $772 more a year for room and board and $73 more in fees.

Regents also unanimously approved a salary raise for faculty and staff at an average rate of 4.8 percent and also increased the employer contribution for health benefits.

CU, one of the largest employers in the state with 26,000 employees, must raise salaries 4.8 percent for certain state workers, known as classified employees, to comply with a survey of market rate increases done through the state Department of Personnel and Administration.

For faculty and unclassified staff, departments can distribute the raises at different rates per employee based on merit.

Regents also approved the establishment of an additional salary fund that departments can access to retain faculty and reward merit and address pay inequities.

Benson said he wants to seek statutory change so that the state funds salary and benefit raises it mandates - a cost that is currently paid in part by students.

"We are balancing the budget on our students, and it would be nice if we didn't have to do that," Benson said.

The tuition and fee increases come at a time when CU has still not recovered from years of state funding cuts associated with an economic slowdown earlier this decade. State funding was partially restored after the passage of Referendum C, but overall dollars are still not at 2002 levels.

Enrollment has increased by an overall average of 1 percent a year in recent years, said Robert Moore, CU vice president for budget and finance. CU has raised tuition and fees at varying rates, including 14.6 percent last year.

"Our costs have gone way up," Moore said. "Our state support is still way below where it used to be, and the only other source we have is tuition."

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361

Reactions to tuition increase

* "People are paying $4 for a gallon of gas and high food prices. We know how difficult that is for families . . .

"We're still suffering from 2001, 2002 and 2003, in losing money and we've got to do something to make sure to maintain the quality at our university. In many, many ways the economy in the state depends on a strong university."

Regent chairwoman Pat Hayes, R-Aurora, who voted for the tuition raise

* "It's not fair that out-of-state tuition is fixed, but there's not the same option for in-state tuition."

Cara Faliano, freshman, studying molecular, cellular and developmental biology

* "There's three ways that you can make up the budget difference. . . . One is through public policy (that brings more state funding), the second is through efficiencies, and the third is through tuition increases. It was my view that the first two are the preferable avenues."

Regent Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs, who voted against the tuition hike

* "(Regents) are pretty much in a situation with their hands tied. Their duty is to make sure the university runs on an efficient level, and beyond that, be able to give the best education to the students at the end of the day. It's definitely a difficult situation for everyone."

Charles Gilford III, 20-year-old business major and Boulder campus student government tri-executive

Comments

  • April 23, 2008

    5:36 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    endthefed writes:

    Why is EVERYTHING going up in cost? It's the inflation stupid. Why doesn't the government publish the M3 data any longer? They don't want us to know how much money is being printed and how devalued our own dollars are becoming. It is just another tax on the people.

    The pricing of college, gas, milk, and everything else is going up because the amount of dollars is going up while the value of those dollars goes down. Maybe we should take another look at the private corporation that has a monopoly on the printing of dollars.

    End the PRIVATE CORPORATION called the Federal Reserve!

    Let the government print the money and be responsible to the people. At least then the dollars would be backed with something and not just be debt notes. If we let the dollar devalue when the government prints it, then we deserve it.

  • April 23, 2008

    7:25 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Acemon writes:

    Another subsidy source for CU football, their stadium, and their overpaid coaching staff. There's more to education that sports.

  • April 23, 2008

    11:43 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    DeskJockey writes:

    Too bad Colorado didn't have the foresight that Wyoming did. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/nat...

    But Laramie's not that far away from here - my daughter attends UWyo as an out-of-state student for less money than attending Boulder at in-state rates.

  • April 24, 2008

    7:59 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    roadstar writes:

    CU's tuition hikes, the cost of books, and the rent in Boulder are killing us. We don't make enough to afford our daughter's college education without loans, yet we don't qualify for financial aid. The middle class gets it again.