Administration officials and student leaders began the process of setting a proposed UH budget, and any necessary changes to tuition and fees, for fiscal year 2009 Thursday.
"This is a group that has the ability to review budget requests at the University, to advise the senior administration and…(UH President Renu Khator) about what kind of budget we should have going forward," Vice President of Academic Affairs Donald Foss said.
The Tuition and Fees Review Committee, composed of administration officials and four student representatives, three of them Student Government Association leaders, will propose which requests from individual colleges and departments should be funded by the University budget funds raised from tuition and fees.
"We…summarize those requests, which always end up to be a lot of money," Foss said. "Behind the scenes, we make some efforts to cut down those requests to a number we think is reasonable."
SGA representatives are opposing the tuition and fees increase by proposing a five-part plan, part of which is to temporarily freeze tuition to assist students. The plan would take effect next fall if approved by the UH System Board of Regents.
SGA also recommends that the University lock rates for incoming freshmen during the four years that they attend UH, reduce tuition for summer courses by half and cap future tuition increases at 6 percent.
The percentage that tuition and fees will increase has not been determined, and the committee will make a proposal to Khator, who will then make a proposal to the board, which makes all final decision regarding tuition and fees.
In June, the board approved a tuition and fees increase of 6.9 percent, a $202 increase to $3,144 from $2,942 for 12 undergraduate semester credit hours.
SGA President David Rosen said that the annual tuition increases are discouraging students from returning to the University because of the lack of affordability and the lack of improvement in student services. In September, student complaints ranged from not receiving financial aid in a timely manner, being dropped from classes despite paying on time and academic records being lost as a result of the switch to PeopleSoft 8.9 from Enrollment Services Online in the fall.
"We need to make sure we’re getting what we paid for," Rosen said. "We should be getting more."
Rosen also said the current incentives the University offers to encourage students to graduate on time, such as the Graduation Pledge, which offers financial incentives to students who graduate in four years, are not effective. Administrators said that it is too early to tell what effects the plans have had on students.
"We’ve only done it for one semester," Ed Hugetz, associate vice president for Planning and University Outreach, said.
The annual raise in tuition and fees will be determined later this spring after an open forum is hosted by administration in late February.
"We will look at how we finance those recommendations, talk about balancing out the various issues and interests that are represented on campus by the various groups," Foss said.
Hugetz also said the budget must increase to keep up with inflation and costs of materials, such as educational tools like WebCT and periodicals that the UH Libraries subscribe to.
The committee also discussed the Science and Engineering Research and Classroom Complex, originally built in 2003 as a "shell" building that was purposefully left empty to be customized as laboratories to attract outside research. The board approved $6 million of Higher Education Assistance Fund money to be allocated toward a build-out of the first floor of SERCC for the next five years. Construction is scheduled to begin later this spring once the plans have been finalized, Foss said.
Foss also said that the University is working to implement a Quality Enhancement Plan, which is necessary for its coming re-accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The University is encouraging undergraduate students to experience more research opportunities, such as the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, for the QEP.
Foss said that he wants to implement the QEP in three years instead of five. The report of the QEP, which includes student feedback from forums hosted in November, is expected to be completed in late February.
