The cost of attending the University of Massachusetts will go up next year by hundreds of dollars. University officials approved contingency tuition and fee hikes today with the final increases to be determined once the Massachusetts state budget is finalized.
The University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees, meeting Wednesday on the flagship Amherst campus, voted to hike mandatory student charges by an average of 7 percent. The exact charges vary by campus. The fee hike for undergraduates at UMass Amherst totals $913.
Board Chairman Victor Woolridge said raising fees is a last resort.
"We are always mindful of the impact raising fees will have on our students and their families, and approach such decisions with the utmost caution and reluctance," he said.
The trustees on a voice vote, following about 30 minutes of debate, approved a 5 percent increase in the curriculum fee for all undergraduates and several campus-specific fee increases for IT infrastructure upgrades, health services, and student activities.
This is the first tuition and fee hike at UMass in three years. The amount of the student charges could be reduced depending on how much money UMass receives in the next state budget. The budget is in the hands of a House-Senate conference committee. UMass President Robert Caret said university officials are monitoring the budget process.
Caret has advocated for a 50-50 funding formula in which the state and students equally split the education costs. That was the case the last two years, but the House and Senate budgets for next year came up $40-$52 million short of the $578 million UMass officials said would be needed for a third consecutive freeze on student charges.
Caret said while enrollment at UMass has increased by 30 percent in the last decade state financial support has not kept up.
"The state has not kept pace on aid, the state has not kept pace on capital budgets, and the state has not kept pace on operating budgets. We just can't make that invisible. We still have to run these campuses in a way that allows them to be accessible and affordable, but high quality," Caret said.
UMass officials say a cost-cutting program has saved $44 million over the last four years in the areas of purchasing, energy, and information technology.
Massachusetts Education Secretary James Peyser, the Baker administration’s top education official, said Umass should do more belt-tightening and not be so quick to raise fees.
" I think it is incumbent upon the university to take stronger action on reducing expenses in order to minimize the impact on student charges," he said.
Alison Rigney, who will be a junior at UMass Amherst next semester, said thousands of students have signed an online petition against the fee hikes, but she’s not confident the message will get through to the decision makers at the Statehouse.
" It is hard because it is the middle of summer and people are all over the place. If this had been during the ( academic ) year we would be able to mobilize more students to get up and tell their stories," she said. " I have a friend who is working four jobs to afford UMass."
UMass trustees Wednesday approved a $3.1 billion budget for the next fiscal year. It increases spending by 5 percent.
