Tuition may rise 5% to 99%

In the second meeting meant to gather input before UW decisionmakers have to craft a difficult budget, detailed plans for potential tuition increases were presented last night.

Audience members also took the opportunity at the budget forum to pitch more than 20 budget-related queries to President Richard McCormick and Provost Lee Huntsman, as well as to Brad Holt, chair of the faculty senate, Sandra Silberstein, vice chair of the faculty senate, and Karen Kavanagh, vice president of human resources.

Faculty wage increases and the increasing cost of healthcare for classified workers were also debated topics.

The discussion began with a brief introduction by McCormick on the Washington state Legislature's unwanted contribution to the UW's "difficult position" and followed with Huntsman's detailed explanation of the current budget proposal.

Huntsman described the rationale behind the increased cost of tuition, which at present would rise by as little as 5 percent for some students and as much as 16 percent for all undergraduates. Other students may endure even higher tuition increases, according to the presented proposal. The Board of Regents has until May 17 to approve a budget.

While the tuition for current external doctor of pharmacy program (PharmD) majors will most likely rise by no more than $1,000, should the current proposal be employed, incoming PharmD majors would pay 63 percent ($3,500) more than current majors. Incoming resident law students, however, would endure a 99 percent ($6,479) increase over what in-state law students paid last year.

According to Huntsman, the reason for such steep increases is to enable the UW to reach specific market targets within three to four years, at which point a UW degree in any field would be financially comparable to other major research universities. Huntsman added, though, that the UW must avoid raising tuition too much, for fear potential students may opt to attend a less costly institution.

Although the UW will receive an estimated $19 million from tuition next year, there remains a funding gap ranging from $21 million to $26 million, which was passed down from the lawmakers reconciling the state's $1.6 billion revenue shortfall. McCormick added that a series of "anti-tax initiatives" passed since 1993 have also impacted the current financial situation.

"The state has dealt us a very bad hand," he said, "and the taxpayers have, too."

Further UW spending -- upwards of $17 million -- may provide financial aid, salary raises, research opportunities and increased campus technology, but it also widens the budget hole. The result is a balancing act by which the UW Budget Committee, the Board of Regents and other UW administrators must distribute available funds.

The issue of how to do spread the cuts, as well as how to raise more money, dominated the Q-and-A session following Huntsman's budget explanation. Audience members offered suggestions on how to reallocate UW funds to better serve the University, proposing everything from administrators taking pay cuts -- which received applause from the crowd -- to reallocating increased research-related donations to other departments.

But in the end, no one solution seemed fit to conquer the crisis, and nearly all of the audience's concerns seemed satisfactorily answered by the assembled panel of administrators. Handcuffed by a statewide budget deficit, the UW is left with few options to recover from its own financial woes.

As McCormick said, "The dollars just aren't there."