Despite tuition increases this year being among the lowest since the Legislature passed tuition deregulation in 2003, student debt is on the rise as the price of housing, books, parking and other higher education costs continue to increase.
UT tuition and fees have increased 66.5 percent over the last three years, according to the Student Government Web site. However, tuition increased by only 5.5 percent this year, to $3,488 in the College of Liberal Arts, according to the UT Web site. That figure does not include a $150 utility fee, which will be reduced to $50 for 2007-2008. With the utility fee, students faced a 9.8-percent increase for 2006-2007.
In addition, the cost of textbooks nationwide has tripled since 1986, according to a government report. Housing and parking prices have also increased. West Campus has seen a decline in the availability of affordable housing, said local real estate agents, and UT Parking and Transportation Services permits have gone up in price by about 10 percent this year.
The average student debt is accruing with equal vigor, according to a report titled "Student Debt and the Class of 2005" by the Project on Student Debt, which aims to develop proposals to reduce student debt.
The average student debt for graduates of public colleges is quickly approaching those for private colleges, according to the report.
Student debt
The report, released Tuesday, shows the average debt for students graduating from Texas public universities was $16,400 in 2005. At UT, students graduated with an average debt of $16,000 that year, according to the same report. The class of 2006's statistics have not yet been released.
New Hampshire leads the country with the highest average student debt at $22,793, according to the report. Utah had the lowest average at $11,309.
California's public student debt average was nearly $4,000 lower than Texas'. The average debt for graduates in 2005 at the University of California at Los Angeles was $14,431 - $1,569 less than UT - despite the fact that UCLA's tuition was higher than UT's for the 2003-2004 school year, according to the report.
High tuition rates don't necessarily predicate high debt, according to the report, When a college allocates grants or discounts to students, it can help reduce borrowing.
UCLA students in 2003-2004 were reported to have received nearly twice as many Pell Grants, one of the nation's most widely distributed grants among low-income students, as UT students, according to the report.
Financial aid and tuition
The Office of Student Financial Services, which also provides scholarships and work-study programs, has seen a 4-percent increase in the number of students applying for financial aid, an amount Henry Urick, assistant director for the Office of Student Financial Services, said he attributes to tuition and fee increases.
UT has had some of the largest tuition increases in the country since the Texas Legislature approved tuition deregulation in 2003, allowing Texas universities to set tuition rates.
The availability of federal, state and institutional grants alone doesn't account for the number of recipients or the increase in student loan applicants, Urick said. Public knowledge of the available resources is also a factor, he said.
"Both at a state and national level, the financial aid community, broadly defined, has been trying to increase our outreach efforts, down to the middle school, to advise students and parents that funding a higher education is possible and that financial aid does exist," he said. "That also would result in increased applicants and loan volume."
Thanks to the publicity the tuition increase has received, students and parents are more aware that financial aid exists, Urick said. That's going to draw in a larger applicant pool, he said.
"Students and families who complete the free application for federal student aid, or FAFSA, are considered for all state, federal and institutional loans, grants and work," Urick said.
Other major grants available for students, include the Pell Grant; the Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent, or SMART grants, which provide additional aid for college juniors and seniors pursuing degrees in the sciences and foreign languages deemed "critical to national security"; and the Academic Competitiveness Grant, designed to reward students for taking rigorous high school courses, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Education.
"Graduate Plus, the new program that was created [for graduate students], does not have an annual cap," Urick said. "The student is eligible to borrow on Graduate Plus what is their cost of education or cost of attendance minus other aid. I've seen Graduate Plus's ranging from $200 a semester to what I saw was about $10,000 or $12,000 for some nonresident students."
West Campus
Another attribute to the increase in students' need for financial aid can be found just west of campus.
The cost of living in West Campus apartment complexes has risen in the last two years, said Ryan Gamble, a real estate agent for Apartment Finders Service.
"People usually find that toward the end of the summer prices go down as the demand is still high for apartments, but the availability is sometimes vast. But this year, there was very limited availability because of the rebuilding in West Campus," Gamble said. "They've torn down so many complexes that they've displaced a great number of students."
Management companies increased their prices as much as $50 a month, but they're still cheaper than the newer structures, said Erica Harms, a real estate agent with Apartment Finders Service.
More people are renting and the market is saturated, Gamble said.
Textbook prices
Increasing textbook costs are just another reason to dig deeper into student loan pockets. Textbook costs have been increasing at 6 percent per year, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued in July 2005. The report blamed the increase in textbook cost on the addition of packaging supplements, such as CD-ROMs.
Student Government is working to provide students with financial relief. SG plans to propose a tax-free textbook initiative to state legislators when the session begins in January. However, SG has failed to move this initiative through the Legislature in previous years.
"The comptroller's office says that a tax-free textbook plan would save Texas students $40 million each year, and inject $206 million into the state economy. It's going to be good for Texas students, and it's going to be good for Texas," said Zack Hall, a government sophomore and chairman of Tax-Free Textbook Campaign.
Tuesday, members of SG's Tax-Free Textbook Campaign plan to gather on the West Mall in front of the University Co-Op to promote the initiative.
"We'll have a big piece of butcher paper, we're calling it 'Starving Students Speak Out,' and students can go up to it and write how much they spent on textbooks," Hall said. "We'll also have postcards for legislators that we're going to stockpile, so when we go the Capitol in due months that we can take them."
Hall said it is now time to get some financial relief.
"Students need help," he said. "Students need help from legislators."
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