Next year's rise in tuition identical to 2006-07 increase
By Inés Guérin
According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, the rise in the cost of living in 2007 was 3.3 percent.
The rise in the cost of living at UP, however, is geared to increase by 5.8 percent in tuition and 5.7 percent in room and board, as stated in a letter to all students' parents from the Rev. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., the University president.
Currently, UP tuition is $26,000 per year, but according to the changes for the 2007-2008 budget, tuition will be $27,500 next academic year.
Moreover, room and board will increase from $7,850 to $8,300 for the same period for the traditional residence halls.
Rise Kiuchi, a junior sociology major, said she is glad that next year she will be a senior and she only has to pay one more year of tuition.
"I have a scholarship, but I definitely wish it was more," Rise said. "It's so sad that the amount of money I receive in four years doesn't change."
To compensate for next year's increase, Deirdre Murfee, a sophomore business major, said she will look for extra loans and scholarships.
"I have a job at this moment so I'd better to keep it!" Murfee said.
UP administration increased the financial aid grants students receive from the University by a "modest" amount, Roy Heynderickx, vice president for Financial Affairs, said.
"We will look at need and review each particular case. We normally do an increase of a maximum of 4 percent or up to 200 dollars," Heynderickx said.
However, four-year loans do not increase during the time students are in the University.
Jennifer Miller, a sophomore education major, is a student worker in the UP library. She said she will not work more hours but she will "definitely search for more loans."
Heynderickx said each year at this time UP announces a tuition increase that depends on the changes in the operating budget. Last year, for example, the tuition increase was 5.8 percent and room and board increase was 6.1 percent.
"It would take something phenomenally different to occur where we will not have to do an increase in tuition," Heynderickx said. "A lot of our budget is focused upon changes we will be able to forecast at this time of the year."
Heynderickx said UP focuses on utilities, benefits to employees such as health care, and the minimum wage increase for student workers on campus in determining the next year's budget. The Oregon minimum wage changed from $7.50 per hour to $7.80 per hour in January 2007. This is a 3 percent increase.
Part of the added revenue from the tuition increase will go to some objectives of the strategic plan UP expressed a couple of years ago, as well as to the requests made by some academic and non-academic departments, Heynderickx said.
"As a private institution we don't have significant state funding, so we have to look at tuition revenues," Heynderickx said. "We look at where we are among our competition."
Phoebe Krueger, a graduate communication studies student, said she is using her own savings to pay for school.
"I don't receive financial aid; I have a grant for Native Americans that covers very little at this University," Krueger said.
Krueger used to attend a public school where this same grant covered almost all her tuition, but she said it is not so helpful in a private institution such as UP.
"I think I'll have to make a sacrifice," Krueger said.
The selected student finance committee at ASUP that helps in the budgeting process decided an increase between 5 and 5.5 percent in tuition and room and board would be acceptable, Heynderickx said.
"So we used that as a guide to present the proposed increase to our Board of Regents," Heynderickx said.
Senior Anna Costa was part of the Presidential Financial Advisory Committee nominated by Sarah Carroll, the ASUP president. They met with Heynderickx last semester discussed budget numbers based on different proposed increases in tuition and room and board, Costa said.
According to Costa, they looked at those numbers as a committee and arrived at the 5 percent and 5.5 percent increases respectively.
The committee thought these increases would ensure a balanced budget, she said.
"The tuition increase of 5 percent was the same as the two previous committee recommendations," Costa said.
They recommended a greater increase in room and board because of the raise in utilities costs projected for next year, Costa said.
"We felt that a great amount of electricity and heat is used in the dorms and that costs would be better matched if more money came from there," Costa said. "The 0.5 percent increase allowed the committee to make the $50,000 Green Fund recommendation. We wanted this money to go toward making campus more sustainable in order to bring down those utilities costs in the future."
The Committee presented the proposed increases and the Green Fund to the ASUP Senate and the recommendations were approved. Then they were presented to the Board of Regents for consideration, Costa said.
According to Heynderickx, since the U.S. government has been reluctant to share other institutions' tuition increases, he does not have access to that information.
However, he will have some data about price changes in other colleges in the Northwest in a month.
Universities usually choose this time of the year to decide the increase for the next year, Heynderickx said.
