ASU President Michael Crow is proposing an 8.5 percent tuition increase across the board for current ASU students in response to what he said is low funding from the state Legislature.
Crow's proposal, which was released to the Arizona Board of Regents on Friday, included a more dramatic increase of about 16 percent for incoming nonresident students.
"This University is still unable to secure the dollars necessary for any of its students' education," Crow said. "You can do that at institutions like this for a while, that is you can go up and down, but you can't do it for long periods of time."
Final tuition numbers won't be set until the Regents meet in March to vote on the proposals.
The Legislature provides ASU with nearly $6,000 for each student enrolled. In-state undergraduate students provide an additional $4,000 in tuition revenue, Crow said. All considered, ASU is receiving about $10,000 per in-state student, but Crow said each student's education costs about $13,000, leaving ASU in the red.
"If the state does not fund enrollment growth and tuition does not increase, our actual dollars available to the institution fall backwards, and we start losing ground rather than even staying steady," Crow said.
Out-of-state students pay additional tuition, giving ASU about $13,000 per student, but Crow said that only takes care of each individual student and doesn't begin to cover the money lost.
Crow said that because the Legislature is not giving more per student, the only other income source is student tuition, beyond private donors.
Crow's plan breaks the student body into six categories of undergraduate and graduate residents, nonresident undergraduate and graduates and future nonresident undergraduate and graduate students.
Crow proposed that resident undergraduate and graduate student tuition increase by 8.5 percent, or $338 and $428, respectively.
Out-of-state undergraduate and graduate students would pay an additional $1,090 per year under the proposal. Future nonresident students, undergraduate and graduate, would pay an additional $2,172 per year.
Housing and urban development junior Dave Damian said the increase could be worse.
"If I need to pay more money, obviously I don't think it's good, but the University has got to do what it's got to do," he said.
In April 2003, the Regents passed a movement to tighten admittance standards for in-state students so universities had only to accept those in the top 25 percent of their high school graduating classes.
But ASU decided to continue admitting students who fall within the top 50 percent of their class, and also decided against capping enrollment -- decisions Crow said were motivated by state demographics.
"We have underrepresented populations, particularly from the Hispanic community," he said. "[Capping enrollment] would basically bar them from the one and only point of access that they have to a university-grade education ... we think that would be socially irresponsible."
Finance junior Stephanie Damiani, an Arizona resident, said she thought the increase was reasonable and increases in nonresident tuition were a good way to make up for low funding from the Legislature since the students don't pay Arizona taxes.
The tuition increases would not affect Pell Grant recipients, Crow said, and would also ensure that ASU remained in the top of the bottom third of tuition for public universities across the country.
Various fees were also included in the proposal, though Crow said they were only being considered at this time. Many of the fees applied to masters and doctoral programs offered at ASU.
The largest fee that would apply to undergraduates was a $1,000 annual fee for students in the Barrett Honors College.
Regent President Gary Stuart, head of the board that ultimately sets tuition rates, said he had no comment regarding the tuition proposal and he would wait for future tuition forums before making any decisions.
"We will ultimately have the responsibility to decide this but that won't happen until we hear from the students on March 2 and have a chance to evaluate all the proposals at our March 11 meeting," Stuart said.
Reach the reporter at rkost@asu.edu.
