A proposed $19 per semester credit hour increase could go into effect in March pending the approval by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. If approved, full-time resident students would have to pay an additional $225 per semester in desginated tuition.
Rising costs and shrinking state support were cited by Vice President for Business and Administration Bob Brown at Tuesday’s public hearing.
“Looking at all of our sources of revenue-state revenue, other revenues from earnings on our unbalanced food service and housing contracts-we found a need to raise designated tuition,” Brown said. “The university is going to commit that after raising designated tuition this year-we will not raise any tuition or student fee next year.”
Mentioned under the rising costs were the competition for quality faculty, facility upgrades and anticipated increases of minimum wage. Another issue is that salaries for some staff positions are unacceptably low and would be increased with the funds.
“All of our salaries are below the mean and state median,” Brown said.
Despite the hike, permanent reductions were made in the areas of Academic Affairs ($594,000), Business and Adminstration ($160,000), Advancement and Marketing ($24,000) and President ($30,000).
“As we move forward and we’re asking for money–we know that $19 an hour is $19 an hour whether it is well spent or not,” Brown said. “We do want you to know that the university has historically controlled it’s costs and there are costs per hour of instruction we deliver are really quite low in comparison to other universities in the state.”
Brown stressed that state support has been shrinking and the result has been releatively small increases in State appropriations over the last twenty years with the increases not tied to operating costs.
This comes on the heels of a recent designated tuition hike of $15 per semester credit hour passed last March.
A&M-Commerce currently ranks 25th out of 35 public insitiutions in affordability.