The UT System Board of Regents' decision to limit proposed tuition increases to 4.95 percent is no victory for the University. Certainly, we all share the Board of Regents' desire to maintain affordability and access to higher education in Texas, but the board's resolution amounts to a "one size fits all" approach and is not in the best interest of the UT System, its component institutions or its students.
Specifically, this approach fails to take into account the unique needs of our campus, the system's flagship. If UT-Austin is forced to comply with the 4.95-percent tuition increase cap, the University will not be financially capable of maintaining the standards of excellence that our students and the citizens of Texas have come to expect. Therefore, I urge the Board of Regents to reconsider this policy and to approve the tuition increases originally proposed by UT's Tuition Policy Advisory Committee.
TPAC based its tuition increase recommendations on strategic needs that must be met during the coming biennium - needs that may not be shared by the other system schools and that reflect UT-Austin's special role among Texas universities. Over the past several years, the University's students, faculty, staff and alumni have reaffirmed their joint commitment to uphold UT's constitutional mandate to be a "university of the first class." Toward that end, students, faculty and alumni groups such as the Commission of 125 have identified the need to reduce the student-faculty ratio by expanding the faculty, to improve the quality of teaching and bring more world-class researchers to Texas by offering more competitive salaries, to improve the University's core curriculum by recruiting outstanding professors to teach undergraduates and to better student services as requested by our student governance groups, among other things. In each of these areas, our information indicates that we have fallen behind our peer institutions, and it will take substantial resources to catch up.
The students of UT-Austin believe that it is absolutely imperative that we stay competitive. Retaining our standing as a leading public university benefits our students and our alumni by preserving the value of their degrees. This is why, for example, the student councils in each of the colleges and schools have consistently supported differential tuition increases - we recognize the value of a degree from UT-Austin, and we are willing to pay to preserve it. This goal does not necessarily stand in opposition to our efforts in keeping UT affordable and accessible for students in all income brackets. Indeed, TPAC's recommendation that more than the mandated 20-percent allocation for financial aid be set aside is evidence of our commitment to that proposition.
TPAC proposed tuition increases of 7.8 percent and 6.9 percent for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years, respectively, due to lagging state support, which amounts to no more than $200,000 for the 2008-09 academic budget. If the University relied solely on the state to accommodate its budgetary growth, we would never be able to satisfy the critical needs identified by the University community. And if the Board of Regents ties our hands with a tuition cap, it will eliminate our ability to maintain excellence. Stephen Myers is a government senior, a member of TPAC and Chair of the Senate of College Councils.
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