SANTA FE — More than 80 UNM students rode the Rail Runner to the Roundhouse with a message: University students cannot sustain further tuition increases.
The group was among about 150 students and administrators who gathered Monday in Santa Fe for UNM Day at the Legislature. They urged legislators to end the tuition credit.
“Personally for me, I commute from Belen, and that is extra funds I don’t need to be spending,” student Amber Gallegos said. “It’s just a way to balance the budget and stick it to students, so it’s not very fair.”
To promote solidarity, students and administrators wore UNM lapel pins and dressed head to toe in cherry, silver and black.
University President David Schmidly said he spoke with representatives from the governor’s cabinet about the unforeseen cost to students if the tuition credit remained.
“Right now, that tuition credit is still present, and I still continue to believe it is not good policy for higher education to be taxing students to run government,” Schmidly said.
Schmidly said the University has not approved any tuition increases.
“We will have much of the month of February for people to discuss those, then we will discuss them with the Legislature, and by March we will begin to put some concrete definition around our budget,” he said.
To offset losses if the tuition credit is repealed, Schmidly said his economic advisory team will look at other areas to make budget cuts. He said the University released its first series of cost-containment recommendations three weeks ago.
The President’s Strategic Advisory Team (PSAT) made recommendations to trim UNM’s $28 million deficit in half by consolidating Enrollment Management, IT services and UNM Press departments among other University-wide cuts.
PSAT also suggested cuts to UNM’s museums and the UNM Championship golf course. Closing the course would net the University an estimated $600,000 in savings, the report said.
Schmidly said PSAT will make more recommendations throughout the legislative session, but he wants to avoid a tuition credit at all costs.
“I’d rather give up more money than to have a credit. Then I could show the students where their money is spent,” he said. “Right now, this money that comes back as a credit, I can’t tell you where that money is spent, but students are paying for it. If we are going to collect tuition, then we need to spend it on students.”
University departments filled the capitol building’s rotunda space and distributed fliers to legislators that
detailed where and how they spend money to support the academic mission.
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“The money has to come from somebody. We have to keep the state running,” ASUNM representative Jaymie Roybal said. “However, I disagree that the state budget should be balanced on the backs of students. I think it’s unfair.”
UNM representatives said tweaking the Lottery Scholarship is a bad idea. HB 62 would allow students to postpone college for one year after high school and still receive the scholarship.
ASUNM representative Michael Thorning said changing the Lottery’s requirements would shorten the scholarship’s life.
“The Legislature won’t be able to continue funding the Lottery Scholarship if we enact these bills,” he said.
Schmidly also said leaving the scholarship alone is financially viable.
“My fear about the Lottery Scholarship is that it is going to run out of money, and I don’t think we ought to be tinkering with it until it’s been shored up financially,” he said. “I would like to see it stabilized before we start pulling around with it.”
Still, the tuition credit trumped all other concerns, Thorning said.
“We need legislators who are going to be political heroes — who are going to stand up and say, ‘I know a tuition credit is an easy solution to this problem, but we’re not going to do it,’” he said.
