The Kansas Board of Regents has approved a tuition increase for all regents schools for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. This increase means approximately $1.4 million in additional revenue for the ESU alone, according to the proposal submitted by the regents.

But students’ pockets are thinning as the increase in tuition is not always offset by an increase in financial aid, said Elaine Henrie, director of the department of Financial Aid and Scholarships.

“When constructing a financial aid budget, we take into consideration an estimated average tuition cost.  This does not necessarily increase funding, as the amounts we can offer for most federal funds are either limited by the amount of funding we have or by the amount of the award we are permitted to offer by federal regulation,” Henrie said.

The increase is in response to the lack of additional funding from the state with a necessary increase in the general use budget for ESU and will cover mostly faculty benefits, including health insurance.

According to a statement by KBOR chairman Ed McKechnie, state funding for universities has been reduced to less than 25-percent, causing tuition to be a much larger part of the budget for universities. He said that despite the increase in financial burden to students and families, KBOR still plans to offer some of the most accessible schooling in the region.

Students at ESU pay around 17-percent less than students attending regional universities in neighboring states, according to a study done by KBOR.

Although all regents schools were affected by the tuition increase, ESU received the second highest raise in price.

Tuition increases are decided on by a committee of faculty and staff, student government and administration, which is then presented to the university president. From there, the president submits it to the regents after discussing it at a campus-wide forum. This offers an opportunity for as much student involvement as possible, said Ashley Vogts, ASG president, in a press release from ESU.

The tuition increase only increases the general budget of all the state schools by 1.3-percent, which is lower than the rate of inflation according to a KBOR’s website.

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Despite the recent increase in tuition, Emporia State’s school of business has been recognized by U.S. Report and World News as the least expensive business school for in-state students in the country at $5,404 per year. This is slightly over half of the average cost of the other top ten business colleges represented.

James Williams, vice president of academic affairs, said the low expense is only a facet of the business college. Williams said the other benefits include small class sizes, prestigious global accreditation and quality staff.

ESU also received the least expensive business school for out-of-state students. The out of state tuition is $5,000 less than the average of the other nine schools in the top ten, making it the most affordable school of business in the nation.

According to ESU’s website, the average undergraduate business class size is 26 students and the graduate class size is 19, with 30 faculty teaching.

Charlie Heptas

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Preliminary discussion of next year’s tuition costs began yesterday afternoon at the Budget Development and Tuition Committee Meeting.

The committee has suggested a 5.5 percent increase, which will be debated next week. Last year, tuition increased by 4 percent for resident graduate students, 4.5 percent for resident undergraduate students and 7 percent for non-resident students.

Tuition rates were predicted to increase because of rising costs of health insurance for university employees, minimum wage and faculty promotions and fringe benefits.

A factor in the FY 2011 budget discussion is federal stimulus support. Last year, the university received $700,000, used roughly half of it for scholarships, $300,000 for equipment and $100,000 for temporary faculty salaries.

While the amount of stimulus money the university will receive for FY 2011 is not yet finalized, Ray Hauke, vice president of Administration and Fiscal Affairs and Budget Development and Tuition Committee chair, estimates it will be around $750,000.

“The regents have already told us informally that they’re honing in on us having to spend all of that money for tuition reduction related kinds of things or otherwise known as scholarships or financial assistance for students in the upcoming year,” Hauke said.

The committee may propose that 1.5 percent of the 5.5 percent suggested increase be covered by stimulus money, but only for students who are Kansas residents. After this increase and the considered stimulus proposal, the tuition for undergraduate residents would be $1,807. It would be $2,191 for graduate residents, $6,662 for undergraduate non-residents and $6,786 for graduate non-residents.

The proposed amount of stimulus money that would go towards tuition leaves roughly $200,000 for other expenses.

“In terms of the rest of the stimulus money, I think probably it could used one of two ways,” Hauke said. “It would be whether we want to recommend a third year of the Hornet Scholars Program, or it could be used for need-based scholarships.”

Committee members composed a list of things to consider including reinstatement of student jobs, continued support of the Hornet Scholarship, promoting a sustainable environment and unfunded mandates.

“We are going to have to increase tuition, so if in any way we can do that so that it restores a few more student jobs I think that would be beneficial,” said Jonathan Krueger, Associated Student Government president and committee member.

Jonathan Rivers, ASG Fiscal Affairs Committee chair and Budget Development and Tuition Committee member, said it is important to consider student perspective.

“If students can see that what they’re paying for actually is having dividends in some respect rather then just paying for some bill, I don’t think there’s a way that we can really show that, but additional opportunities like student jobs or just through scholarships, focusing on those are huge,” Rivers said.

At the meeting, the committee unanimously passed three non-tuition requests for fee adjustment.

One was a requested fee of $25 monthly for guests of Emporia State students to use the Student Recreation Center.

Another request added the $200 fee for International SWARM to the Comprehensive Fee Schedule.

“We’ve been charging this for two years, we just didn’t realize it wasn’t in the fee schedule so we thought we’d put it in there,” said James Williams, Budget Development and Tuition Committee member.

The last request raised Center of Childhood Education fees. Though it was passed, the committee plans to revisit it next week.

After the committee finalizes its tuition and fees recommendations, Michael Lane, president of ESU, will host a forum for students to ask questions at 1:30 p.m. on May 11 in the Kanza Room of the Memorial Union. The following day, the recommendation will be proposed to the Kansas Board of Regents for the final decision.

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