Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993 TAG: 9304270160
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Tech also voted to raise its room-and-board costs by $140, or 4.9 percent, to $3,016.
"We tried to keep the fees down," Tech President James McComas said. "We're trying to show restraint. We're trying to show a commitment to students. Whether they'll recognize that, I don't know."
Out-of-state tuition also is going up next year. While Virginia students will be paying $3,812 in tuition and fees, out-of-state students, required by law to pay the full cost of their education, will be paying $9,680. That amount accounts for 112 percent of the cost of an education at Tech.
With this newest increase, out-of-state students, who make up just over 25 percent of Tech's student body, will have seen tuition and fees jump by nearly 70 percent since 1989.
"Out-of-state students have been getting no sympathy from the General Assembly," McComas said.
The increase likely will affect the makeup of Tech's student body more quickly than it would the University of Virginia or the College of William and Mary, which also are increasing tuitions.
"Even though we have a lot of our middle- and upper-class students, they're not as wealthy as the students attending UVa and William and Mary," McComas said.
Out-of-state students contribute about $3 for every in-state dollar, McComas said. "We can't really afford to change that mix."
In-state graduate students at Tech will be paying $4,400 in tuition and fees next year, and out-of-state graduate students will be paying $6,254.
The legislature had allowed Tech to raise tuition by more than 10 percent, to earn more than $10.8 million.
But Tech kept the amount to $3 million less than the state allowed.
Minis Ridenour, Tech's chief business officer, stood before the board on Monday, going through the figures like a finance professor.
Tech still has the lowest mandatory fees in the state, he said.
Money from the increase will go toward raises for faculty and more positions in calculus, with a goal of cutting down class sizes in that field from 135 students per class to about 35 students per class.
"Especially in this area, the students will see a great difference," McComas said.
The money also will go toward library material, equipment, a stipend increase for graduate assistants, an air-quality program and other programs.
Tuition, though it has been going up slowly year by year, started increasing at the state's universities by larger amounts three years ago, when a state budget shortfall forced universities - and all other state agencies - to cut millions of dollars from their budgets.
Since that time, universities have had to cut back and make up much of the funding difference through tuition increases. Meanwhile, state money that once went into education is being used for health care and prisons, said Henry Dekker, vice rector for the board. "Increased social costs are eating the budget," he said. "And that may continue until we find a solution to medical care and keeping people out of prison."
McComas said all universities have taken a bit of a pounding over the past few years. "But I think we've come through that period about as well as anyone could have hoped."
He said that Tech has worked out a cost-cutting plan that he hopes will give the university more credibility when officials ask the General Assembly for more resources.
Already, Tech has combined several smaller departments to cut administrative costs, though McComas says decisions like these won't always be popular. "There will be some pain and some disagreement and we're prepared for that," he said.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.