The State Board of Education will meet on the University of Idaho campus Wednesday and Thursday in the Student Union Building ballroom. The board will deliver a final decision regarding the proposed 6.1 percent increase in tuition.
UI President M. Duane Nellis, ASUI President Samantha Perez and Keith Ickes, executive director planning and budget, will have 20 minutes at Wednesday’s meeting to present the proposed increase and persuade the board it is necessary for university operations.
“I think at this point in time we’ve answered a number of questions that they’ve had, they’ve seen the material in advance and we’re very hopeful they’ve listened to our discussion and feel that it’s an appropriate and reasonable request,” Ickes said.
All undergraduate students pay the same tuition with additional student fees added for non-residents.
The proposal would increase undergraduate tuition by $356, the non-resident student fee by $268 and graduate/professional fees by $124.
“Some of the members of the board have talked about doing a 3 percent increase,” Perez said. “But for every 1 percent the board lowers our increase that only saves students about $60, so to cut it to three percent that would only save students $180.”
Perez said she has only received positive feedback from students about the increase which is 2.3 percent lower than the increase approved by the SBOE last year.
“All the students that I’ve spoke to have said that’s not that much and they would rather see it be invested into the university. I really hope the board gets that message that they’re not really saving anybody any money,” Perez said.
Ickes said revenue from the increase would support faculty and staff salaries for the approved 2 percent Change in Employee Compensation (CEC) increase, a budget category known as “Moving the University Forward” and the possibility to open up new positions at the university.
“Several parts of this appeal to students,” Ickes said. “Over the last couple years through the budget cuts, the library budget to do new things has virtually gone away. One of the things we’d like to do is restore a proper budget for the library.”
Ickes said they are also proposing an attempt to hire 68 new faculty members with money from the increase in order to “move the university forward.”
“New people in the classroom, new people working with students directly, and on the whole I think students that Samantha has been talking to have been very responsive to that,” Ickes said.
Perez also plans to present the petition she created asking the state board to reconsider its decision to remove the term “flagship” from UI’s mission statement. The petition has collected 6,365 signatures since Perez created it in February.
“I’m not very optimistic that the board will change their mind, but I think the students and our alumni –we really need to make a statement,” Perez said. “I think that even if the board doesn’t allow us to keep flagship in our mission statement I really want to reiterate all of the points of what makes us the flagship. We’re the clear leader, and I hope the board gains from that that we are the flagship whether they want to admit it or not.”
Perez will speak on the issue at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The two-day meeting is open to the public and will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The meeting will continue through Thursday. The meeting can also been streamed live from the SBOE website at boardofed.idaho.gov.
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected]