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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Hearing on tuition increase low-key

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

As the University of Hawai'i launched a monthlong series of hearings on proposed tuition increases yesterday, parent Gerald Peter called the raises overwhelming for Hawai'i's hard-working families.

Public hearings

Thursday, 3 p.m., UH-Hilo Campus Center Dining Room.

Monday, 3 p.m., UH-Manoa Campus Center Ballroom. For proposed increases at UH-Manoa professional schools, including law, medicine, graduate nursing and undergraduate nursing and dental hygiene fee, and business master's.

March 29, 3 p.m., Kaua'i Community College, Campus Center dining room.

March 30, 3 p.m., Leeward Community College, GT 105.

March 31, noon, Maui Community College, student lounge, Student Center Building.

"If you look at doubling tuition in the last 10 years and then doubling it again, wow, that's a lot for the average family," said Peter, noting the proposed increases would cost his family $40,000 to educate their two children.

A battery of administrators, chancellors, regents and other campus leaders gathered in the UH-Manoa campus center ballroom expecting a barrage of testimony, but they were greeted by just a few dozen audience members, a handful of outspoken faculty and the reasoned voice of a single student — political-science master's degree candidate Ikaika Hussey.

Rather than just opposing the doubling of Manoa tuition from about the current $3,500 to about $7,800 in 2010-11, with lesser increases at the other campuses, Hussey mourned the proposed increase as yet another part of the increasingly unattainable costs of living in the home of his ancestors.

"I wouldn't have been able to go to school without the incredible sacrifice of my family and the substantial debt I've collected myself," said Hussey, arguing for cost breaks for lower-income families and a reordering of priorities for the entire state, including more money for the university.

"The university is a gilded staircase," he said. "It's the way up for so many people ... so we need to consider that the people paying more ... shouldn't be the people already struggling to attend."

The UH administration is proposing the tuition increases to bring costs in line with Mainland peer institutions, where tuition has risen in the past year by an average of 10 percent and by more than 20 percent at some state schools. The national average now is about $5,600 annually, compared with about $3,500 at Manoa, the highest-priced campus in the UH system.

Additional money from tuition would be used to cope with the increasing enrollment over the past five years and the loss of state money, and would go toward more classes, additional faculty, improved classrooms and pay differentials to prevent good teachers from leaving.

Although UH enrollment has jumped 13 percent over the past five years, the UH system is having to do more with less, and UH Interim President David McClain has said that's no longer possible.

Yesterday, Dean Chuck Hayes of the College of Natural Sciences agreed.

"We are trying to survive," he said. "This is something we have no choice in."

Carrying most of the anti-increase fervor yesterday were a few faculty members who warned that increases could affect enrollment. A decade ago, that meant the loss of many of the most financially vulnerable students, those of Filipino and Native Hawaiian ancestry.

"In the fall of 1996 and 1997, recall the impact — a decrease of 5,000 students in the system," said associate professor Jon Okamura. The number of Filipino students fell from 7,600 to 6,000 within three years, said Okamura, and Native Hawaiian numbers also declined. Filipino student numbers still have not returned to those earlier levels, he said.

Professor Noel Kent told administrators that "every increase has driven a certain segment of the student body away from access to education," noting that more financial aid will only partly rectify that issue.

"Many will fall through the cracks and give up," he said.

But Linda Johnsrud, interim vice president for academic planning and policy and the chief architect of the tuition increase plan, noted that in the past "there was not the commitment to financial aid" that there is now.

UH administrators have repeatedly made the point that the increases will be offset by a four-fold increase in financial aid. Currently, about $4.8 million is awarded annually in need-based aid, but Gov. Linda Lingle has committed a one-time infusion of $20 million into a state scholarship fund that would cover current levels and more.

During the two-hour hearing yesterday, professor Joel Fischer argued for the need to increase state support of higher education, rather than tuition, calling tuition increases "very bad public policy."

Striking a different note, professor Tom Ramsey argued for higher increases, especially at the community colleges, which lose money with every student and need more resources to plan better for shifting demand.

The most recent increase in tuition at UH occurred in 2001 when regents raised rates by about 3 percent annually through spring 2006. But six years earlier, they had raised rates 75 percent. Both times regents heard strong opposition from students and families, but administrators argued the university was underfinanced by the state and needed small incremental increases so students could plan ahead. The same arguments are being used now.

McClain said that the hearings give administrators the opportunity to get feedback from all those affected "which could lead us to modify this."

But he has also made the point that UH students and their families need to pay a higher share of the cost of their education. Currently, UH-Manoa undergraduate students pay 29 percent, UH-Hilo students 19 percent, and community college students 14 percent. Elsewhere, students pay between 40 percent and 60 percent of their education, said Johnsrud.

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

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