Posted on 02/28/2004 5:48:22 PM PST by Theodore R.
Tech pumps up tuition by 36 percent Regents pass new admissions policy
By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Texas Tech regents passed a dramatic $20 per credit hour increase Friday, despite objections from the student body president, and approved a policy that will include race and ethnicity as admission factors.
The overall increase for the coming school year will add more than $500 to students' bills since the fall 2003 semester.
"This is going to hurt our students," said Jeremy Brown, president of the Student Government Association.
Tech tuition per credit hour Fall 2002 and spring 2003 $88
Fall 2003 $92
Spring 2004 $102
Fall 2004 $124
Source: Texas Tech
Where the money will go
Tech officials estimate the $20 per credit hour increase will generate $14.85 million for:
• $4.86 million, 33 percent, scholarships.
• $4 million, 27 percent, merit program.
• $2.66 million, 18 percent, 30 new faculty positions.
• $1.5 million, 10 percent, benefits for those new hires.
• $883,000, 6 percent, instruction lab equipment.
• $867,000, 6 percent, student services and advising.
Source: Texas Tech
Regents raised the university's portion of tuition to $76 from $56 per credit hour, a 36 percent jump. Students also face a state increase to $48 from $46 per credit hour, a 4 percent in crease, for a total tuition increase of $22 per credit hour.
Brown asked regents if the large increase was the final option.
"It is the last resort," Regent Dick Brooks told Brown. "We are trying to do more with less money. We are up against the wall."
Brooks said the university's student-to-faculty ratio is not low enough and faculty are not compensated at a competitive level.
Robert Black, chairman of the Board of Regents, said he did not want Tech to become a second-rate institution, which affects the degrees of everyone who has graduated from the university.
Tech officials expect the tuition increase to generate $14.9 million. One-third of the money, $4.9 million, will be used for scholarships; 18 percent, $2.7 million, will fund 30 new faculty positions; and 10 percent, $1.5 million, will be used to pay benefits for the new hires.
Regents have increased tuition $30 per credit hour since the Legislature, which previously set rates, deregulated tuition during the past session.
A student taking 15 credit hours will pay $3,074 this fall, 15 percent more in tuition and fees than last fall semester. Students currently pay $2,672 for 15 hours.
Regents increased tuition $10 per credit hour in October for the current semester.
With declining state funding and the growth in enrollment, Tech President Jon Whitmore said, the increase was necessary to maintain the quality of education at the university.
"This is not something we really want to do," Black said. "We have to do it to maintain quality."
The student population has grown 12 percent in the past two years to a record 2003 fall enrollment of 28,158.
The student growth has been unfunded by the state, Whitmore said. The school does not receive state funding for about 3,500 students, he said.
Tuition "is our only real resource at this point in time," he said.
The administration must show students where their investment is going, Brown said.
"The increase is required to cover issues critical to us," Whitmore said.
Fees also will increase by $71.50 per semester, which will help fund a project to provide wireless Internet ac cess campuswide.
Whitmore said he hopes the state will rebound economically so the university will receive more help from the state and be able to lower the burden on students.
Tech students will be affected more by increased tuition than other universities be cause there are more middle-class students than at the University of Texas and Texas A&M, Brown said.
He said he understands the university needs more money with stagnant state funding.
"I don't doubt there's a need," he said.
Brown said he thought the in crease could impact the decisions of people transferring to the university and possibly could lead to Tech students transferring to other universities.
"If it is going to cause some students to go to another university, I think it's horrible," he said.
About 16,000 students, or 58 percent of the student population, is on financial aid at Tech, Brown said.
Black said he was concerned about the future of funding.
"We have to be realistic," he said. "We can't expect major increases in state funding."
Whitmore said the university is operating in a lean manner.
Regents also passed a legislatively mandated tuition increase for the Health Sciences Center. The School of Nursing, School of Allied Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Graduate School of Biomedical Sci ences will see a $2 per credit hour increase to $48.
The institutional or designated tuition for the School of Medicine will increase from $1,104 to $2,000 annually.
Regents also decided Friday to amend the admissions policy at Tech beginning in the fall of 2005 to in clude a new category on diversity.
The category will include items such as race, ethnicity, study abroad, fluency in a second language, experience with college preparatory programs and knowledge of other cultures.
Regents approved race and ethnicity as factors after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June.
"Race will never be used as a single factor to admit a student," Whit more said.
The board's decision likely will draw fire from some organizations.
The Center for Equal Opportunity and other organizations are attempting to overturn policies that include race and ethnicity at campuses, such as the University of Texas, which will begin using those as factors in the fall of 2005.
CEO, a Virginia-based organization that studies civil rights, bilingual education and immigration, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights after Tech regents voted in October for school officials to move forward with including race in admissions.
The summer Supreme Court ruling overturned the 1996 Hopwood decision, which disallowed the use of race in college admissions, scholarships and financial aid.
Tech officials, including Black and Whitmore, said they agree with the Supreme Court and believe diversity enhances the educational environment.
Tech, which has 14 percent diversity in its student population, does not reflect the state's demographics, they said.
"We really haven't made much progress in diversity," Whitmore said.
The new admissions policy also falls in line with the Texas Higher Ed ucation Coordinating Board's objective to bring more Hispanics and blacks into higher education, he said.
The words in the admissions policy will have a minimal effect, Black said, but it shows a commitment from the administration to focus on diversity.
sebastian.kitchen@lubbockonline.com 766-8753
They're using our money to hire people so they'll look good on the news and in the all mighty academic publications. Very little is used for actual education of the students.
"Race will never be used as a single factor to admit a student," Whit more said.
The board's decision likely will draw fire from some organizations.
No s@@t Sherlock. Tech won't be seeing any alumni donations from me.
Another tax. Another welfare program. Those who have to pay full price tuition are forced by government to subsidize "scholarships" for the chosen few. I thought Rick Perry and the Republican legislature were supposed to protect us from increased taxes but it turns out that when they set it so that relatively unaccountable consumers of the people's taxes like Texas Tech can create politically correct unlevel playing fields, it's nothing but another tax, fascism administered at a distance where the legislature and executive do not have to accept responsibility.
Add stuff like this to the long list of taxes you have to pay until May or June or July every year before you are permitted by the government to work for yourself.
Wrong. You've swallowed the party line.
Average class size at Texas Tech in Freshman classes: Lets be nice and make it 60 students, and let's say the class is a 3 hour class, making the tuition cost of the 4 month class meeting 3 hours a week $124 x 3 = $372. With 60 students each class nets 60 students x $372 = $22,320. That is for about 16 weeks x 3 hours = 48 hours of actual teaching time, plus the additional time that the professor spends. That's $22,320 / 48 = $465 "cost" every time the class meets for 1 hour. You know what, I think I can provide meeting space and hire a college teacher to teach 1 hour and provide followup support for that hour for a LOT less than $465. I could probably pay the Professor $200 or $300 an hour and still more than break even.
The costs of a college education are pathetically bogus because colleges do not stick to the thing they exist for: educating students. They play fast and loose with the accounting, they waste money on the college equivalent of the Pentagon's $10,000 toilet seats, they steal money from students who pay full price so they can turn around and give out money for "scholarships" to the blessed few (and they call that an "expense.)
And then on top of that they keep yelling that they are "subsidized" and I should thank my lucky stars that I don't have to pay the real price when the "subsidy" is money taken from We the People in the first place!
It's all just more concealed layered disguised fascism.
Exactly.
If the students had to pay the jacked up full price then they and their families would be the ones subsidizing all the garbage. Why should people who are already incurring a considerable expense be the only ones who have to subsidize though jacked up hidden taxes a state-operated socialist scheme? Maybe We the People should get upset right now over the fact that neither We NOR our students are getting what we ought to be getting from our government: stay out of the marketplace!
I would settle in the short term for not having pay the piper for the cheap ride enjoyed by previous generations at the expense of future generations. But in the long run the real answer is to "separate school and state" and get rid of state run education.
State Colleges are NOT the amazingly less expensive altertive to private colleges; rather, they are the amazingly expensive social programs forced on us by the state at a level just unacceptable enough to just enough people that when combined with the other state giveaway programs permit private colleges to charge even more outrageous prices. If there were no state operated colleges and no government funded tuition We the People would actually be able to afford private colleges.
I think we basically agree and by what I am saying I am not so much trying to make a point to you as I am mainly trying to influence other readers who have never thought about it to question the completely artificial price of college, and question the state's role in making it that way.
So the 40% who pay their own way must now pick up even more for those who won't pay ---- just so they can have more diversity? Sad when the numbers taking everything for free outnumber those willing to work for it. It's like here where only 33% of the population bothers with private health insurance and all the rest get the government to give it to them. Socialism will eventually cause the collapse of this nation.
I received financial aid in the form of student loans while I was in college. I paid them back. I don't consider that socialism.
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