MONDAY, AUGUST 18,2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 17A
Enhancement plan goes on as tuition rises 17 percent
Money goes to fund student grants,staff pay
By Robert Perkins
rperkins@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
In-state undergraduates will pay more than $600 more to attend the University of Kansas than they did last year.
This is the second year of the five-year tuition enhancement plan. Tuition increased 17.71 percent from last year, and by the end of the plan will have ultimately doubled from $77.75 per credit hour to around $160.25 per credit hour.
The University will devote funds raised by this year's tuition increase toward furthering Chancellor Robert Hemenway's goal of improving the educational experience for students, despite a state-wide budget crunch.
budget clerks Lynn Bretz, director of the Office of University Relations, said the main goal of the chancellor and the provost was to protect the University's academic mission.
"What we're doing with the tuition enhancement dollars is to build a better university," she said. "Students are going to see where their tuition dollars go."
Previously, the University's tuition money was part of a general fund that went to all of the state's higher education facilities. This meant that no matter how much the University raised tuition, it might not necessarily benefit KU but instead could be divided among many other universities.
money it receives from the state.
many reserves from the state. The report of the Ad Hoc Committee on University Funding states that support for tuition increases is contingent upon the money being used to enhance students' education, not offset shortcomings in government funding. The University has chosen to spend the enhancement money, as it's called, for student grants, staff pay increases, technology and learning environment improvement. About 20 percent of the revenue from the tuition increase will be spent on need-based grants for students. The KU Tuition Grant adjusts the tuition of the student for what it would have been without the increase. Last year the University allotted $1.7 million for the grant, which will double to $3.4 million this year.
Brenda Maigaard, director of the Office of Student Financial Aid, said she had received positive feedback from students and parents who had benefited from the grant.
Individual undergraduate students who receive the grant will be awarded $1,000 each this year, up from $500 last year. Graduate students will receive $800,up from $400. Students getting any other kind of financial aid are not eligible for the grant.
"They said it really helped them to remain at KU, or to attend it in the first place," she said.
For the 2001-2002 academic year, the Board of Regents agreed to fund the state's universities on a block grant that didn't take their tuition into account and allowed them full ownership of their tuition.
As a result, when tuition at the University increases, the money stays at the University and doesn't affect how much
"What we're doing with the tuition enhancement dollars is to build a better university."
director of the Office of University Relations
Lynn Bretz
The University will split the rest of the money between staff raises and upgrading buildings.
Some money is being spent on improving KU's libraries. Bill Myers, director of library development, said his goal was to make the libraries more accessible and inviting to students. Myers wanted to improve libraries' technology this year. Last year's money helped pay for the revamping of
Watson Library's lobby.
Not everyone is pleased about the way the tuition increase money has been spent, however.
Dan Carey, the president of the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition, said that though the GTAC had decided not to take a stance on the issue of tuition increase, he personally didn't support it.
As per the new contract with the GTAC, the University agreed to pay $3 million over the course of three years to the GTAs, which is roughly a 10 percent increase in pay. That money is coming from the tuition increase, a fact that Carey, Overland Park graduate student, said he wasn't pleased about. Carey said that it seemed like a ploy to hurt the GTAC's bargaining position for renegotiating its contract in two years by swaying public opinion.
"The reason why they like to say that it's coming from student tuition is that they want to use that against us," Carey said. "That seems to be one of their strategies."
Allocations for tuition increase
Faculty Salary Increases $1,500,000 (merit-based system)
Department OOE $1,500,000
Bretz said the reason for using enhancement money for the GTAs was because it would attract better graduates and improve the standard of education, which fell within the goals of the increase.
Technology enhancements $500,00^{0}$
Unclassified staff salary increases $2,400,000 (merit-based system)
"Working conditions equal learning conditions," he said. "You improve our working conditions, you're going to improve the learning conditions of the undergraduates."
Unclassified staff salary increases $2,400,000 (merit-based system)
GTA salary increases $700,000
Libraries $1,000,000
New staff positions $500,000
Faculty startup $420,000
Student hourly wages $0
New GTA/lecturer positions $150,000
GRA tuition/GTA health insurance $0
Program/student support $0
Classroom improvement $60,000
TOTAL $8,730,000
Carey agreed that the money would help, but said he wanted it to come from somewhere else.
Even with the tuition increase, the University remains cheaper than many comparable schools. From 1980 to 2001, the University had the fifth-lowest change in
tuition and required fees of all 50 state flagship universities.
Low tuition has taken its toll on the University though. As of 2001, the University had a $50 million gap in funding between it and its peers. The goal of the tuition increase is to close that gap by approximately $43 million.
Sean Smith/Kansan
Despite a $20 per credit hour increase last year, University instate tuition remained cheaper than that at the University of Missouri, the University of Iowa and the University of Nebraska.
Edited by Michael Owells
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