Tuition set to increase

In a 10-3 vote on Friday, the Oregon Board of Higher Education gave final approval for tuition increases at the Oregon University System’s seven campuses, including Portland State.

The new tuition rates go into effect for the 2013-2014 academic year and vary slightly between the state’s public universities. According to a press release, the new rates average a 4.8 percent increase over tuition rates during the 2012-2013 academic year.

Diane Saunders, director of communications at OUS, said in an interview that the increases are ultimately rooted in the state’s disinvestment in higher education.

“The budget that we have today is actually less than our budget was 12 years ago,” she said, “and we have 34,000 more students. That kind of defines the problem right there.”

Saunders added that 20 years ago, the state covered 70 percent of the cost of attending a public university, and students were responsible for the remaining 30 percent. Today, those numbers are reversed. “The shift in paying for public education has gone to the students,” Saunders said.

Ultimately, it was up to the individual universities’ tuition setting committees to determine their future tuition amounts.

At PSU, this responsibility fell to the Student Budget Advisory Committee and the University Budget Team. Their recommendation? An increase of 4.5 percent for resident undergraduates, with an additional one percent increase for undergraduates from out-of-state. In a letter to the Board outlining these recommendations, Monica Rimai, PSU’s vice president of finance and administration, noted that “entering into budget planning for fiscal year 2013-2014 PSU was facing an approximately $30 million deficit.”

While similar increase recommendations from other Oregon universities were among those approved by the vote on Friday, Saunders said that the atmosphere surrounding the Board’s decision-making process was hardly cheerful, especially in light of testimony from students who would be forced to make decisions between paying for tuition and meeting their other obligations.

“I guess sadness and frustration would be a good way to describe it,” she said. “Those who voted yes voted with a lot of consternation.”

Saunders likened the situation to being stuck “between a rock and a hard place.”

“The only way to ensure that students have a quality education and ensure that they get through on time is those tuition increases,” she said. “If we freeze tuition now, that sends a signal to the Legislature that we’re okay. And we’re not okay.”

Despite the realities faced by PSU and the larger OUS system, there remains the possibility that these increases could still be reduced before the start of the next
academic year.

“There could be last-minute additional funding to higher education to reduce those tuition amounts,” Saunders said. This scenario relies on both on state legislative action as well as the money being available at the end of this year’s legislative session. “It would take $50 million to freeze resident undergraduate tuition,” at current levels, Saunders said.

According to the press release announcing the Board’s vote, the Board “voted that, should additional funding be provided by the legislature, that tuition increases should be reduced accordingly.”