Tuition proposed to rise 5.5 percent

and Ryan Papir Undergraduate tuition and fees will rise by 5.5 percent next year if a proposal advanced by administrators is approved by the University's Board of Trustees at this week's annual budget briefing. Tuition and fees for graduate students, averaged across disciplines, will rise 5.6 percent. The jump -- the lowest percentage increase in more than 20 years --would push the total cost of undergraduate tuition and fees from $18,856 for the 1994-95 academic year to $19,893 for 1995-96. But University President Judith Rodin said yesterday that the total proposed cost increase for undergraduates is only four percent, because neither Residential Living nor Dining Services charges will go up. "We all intended to keep tuition increases as low as possible, and we're very pleased," Rodin said, adding that traditionally the University -- compared to peer institutions -- has had the lowest annual tuition increases and the highest hikes in residential and dining contract rates. None of the seven other Ivy League institutions have released 1995-96 budget projections yet, Rodin said. She also said that the suggested 5.5 percent increase is feasible because of three major changes in the University's budgeting process: administrative restructuring as a result of the Coopers & Lybrand report, long-term strategic academic decision-making and "tightening" of expenditures across the University. These adjustments may take on additional importance as the the proposed Commonwealth of Pennsylvania budget -- released by Governor Tom Ridge last week -- does not provide the increase administrators were seeking in the University's $35 million appropriation. While the state budget preserves the current level of funding for the University, it is still subject to change by the General Assembly. Vice President for Finance Stephen Golding said the University's Board of Trustees requested lower tuition hikes several years ago. "The Trustees have mandated that we have a declining rate of increase in our tuition, and we have tried to honor that for the last five to six years now," Golding said. He added that the University also has to consider declining or stagnant revenues from other sources of funding in determining tuition increases. "We're trying to decrease our overall rate of tuition [increases], but we're doing it with an eye toward the other revenues which are not growing at the rates at which they grew a few years ago," Golding said. He pointed to potential cutbacks in federal indirect cost recoveries and unchanged state funding as examples of such funding sources. The Undergraduate Assembly lobbied hard to keep the tuition-and-fees increase for undergraduates below five percent. But UA Chairperson Dan Debicella said last night he thinks the proposed change is "a success." "The administration is probably just being a little too cautious in their revenue assumptions from the endowment, outside sources such as gifts and the like," the Wharton junior said. "[But] I think that it's great that it's so close to five percent. I wish it were under five percent, but we tried our best."

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