Hearings clarify university's tuition position

Hearings were held on Monday and Tuesday this week to discuss a potential increase in the designated tuition of students at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

The hearings, which are state mandated for any university tuition increase, laid out the university's planned recommendation to the Board of Regents of the Texas A&M system for an increase in tuition from a range of $0 to $3.71 per semester credit hour, beginning with the fall semester of 2010.

According to President Dan Jones, the decision to increase tuition is not being made lightly.

"We always have to be mindful that raising the price runs the risk of limiting access," Jones said, "so we cannot raise tuition without a real need."

A part of that "need" is a recent state mandate for all government-funded universities to identify five percent of their total budgets to be tentatively eliminated.

"This amounts to $3.7 million of our total budget returned to the state in the planned reduction," Dean of the College of Business and Technology Hal Langford said.

In addition, the stimulus money that helped fund university activities will not be available the next fiscal year, according to Langford. Declining property tax and sales tax revenue are projected to contribute to a state budget shortfall in the fiscal year of 2010, according to the hearing presentation.

The university plans on expanding several programs with any additional money they receive, including developing a math and science teaching academy, as well as establishing programs in China, India, and Pakistan, according to the presentation.

The Board of Regents, after hearing the university's recommendation, will determine the size of the increase at their meeting in May. Administrators at A&M-Commerce are making plans for the entire range of possible increases.

"We want to let the board know we are prepared for whatever they want to do," Jones said.

Paired with the possible tuition hike is a "forced reallocation" initiative by President Jones, where one percent of the budget of each division at A&M-Commerce is identified and reallocated to a budget pool used to fund other university initiatives, a pool estimated to total $490,199 this year.

"Each of the units of the university was asked to identify one percent of their budget to reallocate across the university, to put in a pot, if you will, to try and move those monies to strategic initiatives where we can get more ‘bang for our buck'," Langford said.

Jones asked for a three percent forced reallocation last year, totaling an estimated $1.4 to 1.5 million.

"We were able to use $800,000 of that money (last year) to create the division of Student Access and Success," Jones said, "and did not have to ask for new money to do it."

After the reallocation, the Budget Review and Development Council will field proposals from across the university on ways to use the revenue.

"The idea is to get creativity going," Jones said. "By fielding proposals from everyone, sometimes we will receive ideas that would never have occurred to me. It gets everyone thinking ‘What can I do in my area?'"

The reallocation project will take place regardless of the amount of the tuition increase, according to Langford.