About 40 concerned students and organization leaders gathered Tuesday to discuss various alternatives to ASU President Michael Crow's tuition increase proposal.
"This gives students an opportunity to contribute to the dialogue of tuition," said Matt Schuh, director of government relations for the Associated Students of ASU. "I think students should play a more integral part than they have in the past."
Hosted by ASASU, the forum showed students four options that would increase tuition.
The first proposed tuition model was incremental increases, meaning that tuition would be adjusted in smaller increments, allowing students to not be stuck with one huge bill.
Rachel Fleming, an art history graduate student, said she thought a gradual increase would be the best for students and wants to see the money go back to the classrooms.
"I would like to see class sizes capped at a smaller number to give students a way to feel more encouraged and more comfortable," Fleming said.
Another model would call for a one-time significant jump in the amount paid for tuition.
Many attendees, however, said this option was the least desirable.
"[This option] punishes one group of people at one time," said Zeynep Kilic, a sociology graduate student.
The third option would increase tuition significantly for incoming freshman and only slightly for continuing students.
The final model proposed tuition to be dependent upon on the program the student was enrolled in. This model could be used in conjunction with any of the previous three.
Arizona Board of Regents representative and law student Danelle Peterson-Kelling said a tuition increase would affect all students from ASU even if they would be graduating soon.
"Though we might not see all of Crow's changes, ASU will be on all of our resumes forever," she said.
Marjorie Zatz, associate dean of the graduate college, said she came to listen to student opinion.
"I wanted to hear students concerns, ideas and thoughts [about tuition]," Zatz said. "This gave me a better understanding of students concerns and helped to learn even more."
Reach the reporter at jennifer.summers@asu.edu.
