Next year’s tuition increase sign of the times

    Tuition will increase $515 a semester for the 2009-2010 school year. The increase is needed to account for growing costs the university is accumulating, according to Bill Bliebdrey, senior vice president of finance and administration.
    This rate brings the block undergraduate tuition rate for full-time students taking 12 to 18 hours to $8,880, including the general and technology fees.
    Bleibdrey said cost increases, such as insurance and energy, are a few expenses that have risen significantly in the past few years.  When costs rise, so does tuition.
    “We intentionally wanted to minimize our increase because of the general economic conditions,” said Bliebdrey. “We did this despite some unavoidable, major cost increases. As a result, we had to cut back in a number of areas in order to keep tuition affordable.”
    According to the minutes from his presentation to Faculty Council, those cutbacks include the elimination of faculty raises, a cutback in faculty and staff retirement contributions, “selective” hiring, a slowdown in IT development and delay of any increased security expenditures.
    He said in his presentation that such decisions were difficult but necessary during the current recession in order to keep university finances healthy. Institutions everywhere are experiencing similar adjustments.
    The cost of tuition is determined by a number of aspects, Bliebdrey said, such as the school’s costs, other local and national university tuition and what the university considers reasonable.
    University of North Texas and University of Texas at Arlington are approximately $7,400 a year full-time, according to their Web sites, but they are public institutions with enrollment of more than 30,000 students. Fees greatly increase the actual dollars students end up paying at public universities.
    Texas Wesleyan University’s enrollment is approximately 3,000 with tuition lower than other private institutions in the area. 
    According to Texas Christian University’s Web site, full-time tuition is currently at $26,900 a year. Full-time tuition for Southern Methodist University, according to its Web site, is $35,160. 
    Wesleyan’s new full-time rate, $17,760 annually, is almost half of the schools mentioned above. 
    Bleibdrey said Wesleyan’s costs are rising more than tuition. 
    “Rarely is there a year when tuition at this or any other institution is not increased,” he said. “As our requirement – it is that we spend no more each year than we take in – we also don’t want to generate excessive profits by charging too much. Students can expect annual tuition increases that will reflect our increasing costs of operations.”
    According to the office of finance and administration, hourly undergraduate tuition rates, which apply to summer school and part-time students, will increase $24 to $608 per hour. Next year’s graduate tuition will range from $442 to $842 per hour, up from $424-$809. All rates include general and technology fees. 

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