UH might fight cuts in budget with tuition hike

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

The University of Hawai'i is pondering tuition and fee increases and student waiver cuts — or variations of both — to make up deficits in state financing that loom over the next few years.

Neubauer lays out a range of possibilities for the regents against a backdrop of tuition and mandatory fee increases that have occurred at public universities in every state, with some jumping as much as 26 percent.

Community college tuitions have also risen in all but two states, he said.

"Reducing the number of waivers, and reducing the number of nonresident tuition waivers is an alternative to raising tuition across the board," Neubauer wrote.

UH-Manoa's tuition is one of the lowest — 17th of the 19 state colleges considered peer institutions. The national average of those benchmark colleges is $4,471 annually for resident undergraduates, with Manoa at $3,253 for the 2001-02 academic year. Some, like the University of Vermont, are as high as $8,665; others, like the University of Colorado-Boulder, are $3,357, with the national average of all state colleges at $4,260 for in-state tuition.

Neubauer said final decisions will likely not be made until fall when new enrollment estimates are firmer, and the administration has a better idea of costs over the next three years. If that happens, he said, any tuition increases would be effective in the fall of 2004.

The suggestions Neubauer made to the regents will be weighed against the final dollar figures that emerged from the recent legislative session. Though Gov. Linda Lingle had at first proposed as much as $10 million in UH financial cuts, the final legislative budget version gave the university system $1.8 million in cuts for each of the next two years, or a reduction of about 2.5 percent.

This comes on top of 5 percent in additional reductions Lingle decreed for the current fiscal year.

If tuition is raised again to meet these financial shortfalls, Neubauer said, the increases would probably be fairly small and spaced out over a longer time to make the least impact on students. UH-Manoa is in the midst of a five-year phased-in tuition increase through 2005-06 of approximately 3 percent per fiscal year.

"Once you're living more and more on tuition," Neubauer said, "the more you have to be cognizant of what happens to you if you suffer enrollment declines."

Rising enrollment might offset some of the need for an increase. Based on the tuition increases now under way, revenues will rise annually, from $71.8 million in 2001-02 to an estimated high of $87.9 million in 2005-06.

UH's annual income from tuition is $77.4 million; next year it will be $80.6 million; and in 2004-05, $84 million.

Neubauer said all combinations of raising tuition, fees and cutting waivers are being considered but previous discussions with the regents have indicated a preference for raising tuition for incoming students rather than those enrolled.

The university administration is reassessing its policies and practices regarding the number and amount of tuition waivers offered each year, and expects to have completed that assessment in June.

The Manoa campus is taking $1.6 million of $1.8 million in legislative and gubernatorial budget cutbacks to the UH system.

"They spared Hilo, the community colleges and West O'ahu, the aquarium," said Glenn Nakamura, UH Budget office acting director.

Nakamura said officials will have to make tough decisions on what to cut, given that the university is trying to expand high-demand programs while trying to maintain new facilities and buildings. The legislature cut the university's capital improvements budget, leaving $5 million each year for the next two for repairs and maintenance.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.