The Arizona Board of Regents held a public meeting Wednesday for students, Arizona residents and university presidents to discuss proposed tuition increases for the Arizona university system in the 2012-2013 fiscal year.
The meeting was broadcasted on all four ASU campuses as well as NAU and UA.
ASU President Michael Crow, who spoke from the Tempe campus, proposed a 0 percent increase for in-state undergraduate students and a 3 percent increase for out-of-state and graduate students outside of the law school.
“While challenging, we believe we can make this work with our very small tuition adjustment,” Crow said.
Crow also reminded attendees of the already approved initiative to move the law school from public support to a “self-supporting” model.
Undergraduate Student Government representatives from all four campuses spoke in support of President Crow’s 2012-2013 tuition proposal.
However, members of the Graduate and Professional Students Association and the Student Bar Association expressed concerns about the graduate student tuition increase and the law school’s initiative to become self-supporting.
GPSA President Kelley Stewart said while the proposal is the best students have seen in the past seven years, she would not properly represent the graduate student population without noting their opposition.
Stewart also requested that the University research new models of funding professional and graduate programs.
“We must ease the rapidly rising reliance on funding graduate education with loans,” she said. “Many students do not have alternate funding opportunities.”
Student Bar Association President Sean McGarvey spoke in opposition of the law school's “privatization” and presented a letter with more than 125 signatures in agreement.
“For the past two years, my fellow students and I have grown increasingly concerned with the law school’s privatization initiative that has been undertaken without student input … and its adverse impact on law school tuition,” he said.
He said he believes the “self-sustainability initiative” decreases the competitiveness of the law school.
“Public, legal education has merit,” McGarvey said.
Though in-state and undergraduate tuition has increased 95 percent over the past five years, Crow said the University views undergraduate and graduate students in a “very different light.”
A 3 percent increase in graduate student tuition is necessary in order to keep up with the increasing costs of graduate programs, Crow said.
“In-state undergrads are the children of or family members of long-term taxpayers in Arizona and we try to keep access to undergraduate education at the lowest possible knit cost,” Crow said. “The Board authorized us to move our graduate tuition to what’s called ‘market.’”
Crow said the increasing costs range everywhere from utility bills to supplies and are not associated with salaries.
“Now, we’re well below the market cost, but we still have increasing expenses for graduate programs,” he said.
Reach the reporter at kmmandev@asu.edu
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