Student charges going up 4.9% starting next fall

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

n-state undergraduates on the Amherst campus will pay 4.9 percent more per semester next year than they are paying for the current semester under a plan approved Wednesday by the Board of Trustees. In response to state budget cuts, the trustees approved the $280 per year increase among other additions to fees across the University system at its meeting on the Dartmouth campus.

     Given the $495 added to their fees between semesters this year, which amounted to a $990 increase for the coming year, the hike represents a 24.4 percent increase over the rate in-state undergraduates at the Amherst campus were paying during fall 2001. Lowell, Boston, and Dartmouth campus undergraduates from Massachusetts will pay 22.5 percent, 23.7 percent, and 24.2 percent more respectively than they did in fall 2001.

     Tuition and fees for out-of-state undergraduates at the Amherst campus will have risen 13.9 percent over the same period. Graduate students at Amherst will see related hikes: 15.6 percent for in-state students and 10.7 percent for out-of-staters.

     "We are not eager to take this action but are committed to protecting academic programs and maintaining academic excellence," President William M. Bulger said. The University system has been cut $28.5 million during the current fiscal year.
Across the system the average increase per student per semester over the current semester's cost was 6.7 percent.

     Bulger noted that the University is cutting costs as well as raising tuition.
"We face a fiscal challenge that should not - and will not - be addressed on the revenue side alone," he said. "To that end, the campuses are going forward with workforce reduction steps that will result in the elimination of 300 positions by the end of the fiscal year. These actions are painful but necessary."

     In spite of the increases, the President's Office projects that the Amherst campus will remain the second most affordable of the New England flagship campuses for in-state undergraduates, when taking tuition, fees, room and board into account.

     Because the University decreased its average student charge between FY96 and FY00, the FY03 average charge per resident undergraduate represents only an 18 percent increase since FY96. During that same period, inflation was 19 percent.

     At the board meeting, Bulger noted that the University's A+ bond rating from Standard & Poor's was reaffirmed this week and that the firm described UMass' financial outlook as stable.