Finance committee recommends
tuition increase
By Rachael Conley
Assistant Campus Editor
The recommendation of the finance committee to
the Board of Trustees is that tuition costs will go up.
Today, the Purdue's Board of Trustees is expected
to approve a 10 percent tuition increase for current Purdue students.
That increase will result in a 34 percent increase for prospective in-state
students and a 17.2 percent increase for prospective out-of-state students
because of a tuition increase of $1,000 approved as part of Purdue's
strategic plan.
The increase in tuition is a result of a shortfall
in the state budget this year and Purdue President Martin Jischke said
the extra funds will help the University.
"It will allow us to stay the course on the strategic
plan," Jischke said. The increase will also allow a modest salary increase
for Purdue staff.
"It is not intended to recommend that this be across
the board," said Jischke. The compensation would be based on an evaluation
of the individuals.
The funds from the student fees will be allotted
to different areas across campus.
An increase in the number of faculty will be the
focus of $3 million; $2.64 million go towards student financial aid
and $1.2 million will go towards faculty compensation. One million dollars
will go toward information technology; $200,000 will go toward efforts
in diversity and another $200,000 will go toward experimental learning.
The total of these expenses is $8,247,000 and will
all be extracted through the tuition increases.
Cuts will be made in other areas on campus, for
example funds for repairing and restoring will take a 25 percent reduction.
"We'll have to stop doing a quite a number of things,"
Jischke said. "This is the beginning of deferred maintenance."
Due to reductions in this funding, classrooms and
labs will have to go without upgrades.
The 21st Century fund will also lose money; the
loss will force Purdue to limit the number of partnerships it has with
companies and industry. Also, the number of startup companies in the
Purdue Research Park, the efforts in information technology and the
number of graduate research assistants will all decline.
Jischke said he and other officials do not think
Purdue should fall behind in technological research due to these cuts.
"After we dealt with the unavoidable cost increases,
we had four priorities," said Jischke.
The priorities are faculty salary compensation,
patching the hole of the technology budget, "staying the course" on
the strategic plan and supplying financial aid.
"We tried to increase financial aid to students,"
he said. "We didn't do anything to fix the (repair and restoration)
budget; we didn't do anything to fix the 21st century fund. In order
to do (the priorities), that's what led us to the 10 percent recommendation."
Members of the board made many comments about the
recommendation.
Lamone Powers said, "I think we should be commended
for staying the course."
In the Big Ten, Purdue ranks eighth in the amount
of in-state fees and below the mean of out-of-state fees.
The Board will meet to vote on the tuition increase
at 10 a.m. today in Room 326 of Stewart Center.
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