March 27, 1998
Regents approve 3.5 percent increase
The UNM Board of Regents on Thursday approved a 3.5 percent tuition and fee increase for graduate and undergraduate students, a 10 percent increase for law and medical students and an average 5.5 percent pay raise for faculty and staff members.
University administrators said revenue from the increase will be used to give faculty and staff members on average an additional 1 percent increase.
The Legislature this year approved enough funding for a 4.5 percent pay raise. The additional percent will come from the tuition increase. It takes a 3.5 percent tuition increase to generate enough money for a 1 percent compensation increase.
A small portion - $10.50 of the increase – will go toward increasing the student services fee as recommended by the Student Fee Review Board.
The 3.5 percent increase for graduate students does not include an additional $10 per year fee each student will contribute to the graduate student research fund.
The regents approved the pay raises and tuition and fee increases unanimously.
Six students addressed the regents before their vote.
English student Ben Tucker said he supports increasing student fees because, unlike tuition, student fees have not increased for many years. He said he opposes the tuition increase, and he added that he disagrees with using a tuition increase to pay for a faculty and staff pay raise.
“Besides,” he said, “it’s not really a raise; it’s just keeping their salary at a par with the cost of living.”
Beulah Woodfin, UNM Faculty Senate president, said she is concerned about the compensation increase.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
She said a 4.5 percent compensation increase would barely allow faculty to keep up with cost of living increases.
She said a method of salary increases that takes merit into consideration could be perceived as being punitive. To reward an outstanding employee for meritorious performance, she said, departments would have to minimize other employees’ pay.
Woodfin also said faculty members would like to see the University address salary compaction – longtime employees getting salaries that are similar to those of new employees.
Staff Council President Kari Ward Karr also said staff members would like to see salary compression addressed when pay raises are decided. Salary compression refers to UNM employees who earn below the market salary.
Ward Karr said she is concerned with the salary police because it is unclear how merit would be determined.
“It’s a very big practice on campus not to receive performance evaluations,” she said. “I feel strongly that merit increases should be tied to documentation.”
“I would like to see the regents work for the evaluations,” she said, adding that evaluating UNM managers is as important as staff evaluations.
Graduate and teaching assistants will also receive a 6 percent compensation increase. Graduate and Professional Student Association President David Miertschin said the increase is welcome.
Regent President Larry Willard thanked students for their courteous input.
“The involvement and participation make me feel good overall,” he said.
He called it a much more meaningful environment for things to happen than one in which “we can’t hear ourselves think.”
Willard was referring to past regents meetings in which students loudly protested increases in tuition.
Miertschin, one of 16 students arrested in April 1996, reminisced about the passion he felt while protesting tuition increases.
“Three years ago I stood here and cursed everyone out,” he said. “I had been arrested the night before and was still wound up and passionate about the issue.”
Miertschin said his transition from protesting to participating in the process has taught him two things.
“By sitting here, I’ve come to fully understand what goes on in here (Scholes Hall),” he said. “I’ve also learned to voice my opinion about what goes on.
Tuition increased as UNM faces more budget cuts
March 23, 2016
Undergraduates will be paying a bit more to attend school in the fall, albeit not as much as they could have been paying.
At the annual Budget Summit on Tuesday, the UNM Board of Regents voted unanimously to increase tuition by 2.5 percent, to about $5,286 for the 2016-2017 school year.
Students will also pay about $157 more in fees next year, an increase of about 10.5 percent, stemming from the approval of renovations to Johnson Center, Anderson School of Management and Smith Plaza.
The tuition raise, which various board members called a tough decision, is a result of increased budget shortfalls for the University.
University President Bob Frank said in his legislative report that UNM faces a projected deficit of $7.6 million for the coming year. Several numbers figure into that result, including cuts from the state and a drop in enrollment.
“We are out of easy solutions,” Frank said, adding that this is the fourth round of budget reductions in the last three years.
New Mexico is increasingly at odds with its reliance on falling oil and gas revenues, which has led to budget deficits from across the state, including UNM. The University as a whole is facing $7.9 million in reductions from the state, and about $5.1 million for main campus alone.
Frank said it is up to the University to find ways to compensate in tough economic times for the state, which could last for a couple more years, he said.
“This is our new normal,” Frank said. “We need to find a way as a University to deal with this volatility.”
Taking advantage of a tuition increase alone would require a seven percent hike in tuition, something Frank said UNM administration would not be willing to propose. Instead, he said a responsible proposal would be to balance between a tuition hike and budget cuts.
That proposal actually included a three percent tuition hike at first, which made several Regents, as well as student government leaders, very wary. This would mean students taking 15-18 credit hours would be paying about $5,312 a year.
Over 4,000 graduate students at UNM will also pay higher tuition, to the tune of about $25 over the course of the year. That represents an almost four percent jump over 2015-2016, including fees.
ASUNM President Jenna Hagengruber said, despite UNM’s relative affordability compared to other institutions of similar size, she feels hesitant to tighten students’ wallets.
However, she said, based off the possibility of diminishing the quality of education UNM offers, as well as the uniquely challenging atmosphere the University finds itself in, she supports a tuition increase.
That is, with an asterisk.
“I would prefer – actually, I would mandate – that if undergraduates were to support this, it would be below three percent,” she said. “If we are potentially losing services to students, and staff who are supporting students and faculty who are teaching students because we don’t have the money, then we would rather pay an increase in tuition.”
In a joint statement drafted before the Summit between Hagengruber and Graduate and Professional Student Association President Texanna Martin, the student government leaders said that as long as new avenues of raising revenue are being explored, they stand by a tuition increase under three percent “if it is truly in the best interest of the student body.”
Regent Marron Lee echoed a similar sentiment, saying that while she believes there are more efficiencies to be found to ease the University budget, the tuition increase is necessary to maintain quality.
“I’m not comfortable with a three percent tuition increase, I’m not comfortable with any tuition increase,” Lee said. “But I understand...we’re in some very difficult times as an institution.”
Regent President Rob Doughty said, based off his own research, tuition has gone up 150 percent at UNM, but that the belt could not be any tighter in terms of necessary cuts made to stay afloat in the stormy waters of the statewide economy.
He said because of these outstanding circumstances, he would support a slightly lower tuition increase of 2.5 percent. Lee later made a motion to approve the change, which was unanimously passed, along with the 10 percent increase in fees.
The combined amount of tuition and student fees for undergraduate students taking 15 to 18 credit hours next year is almost $7,000, compared to about $6,664 from the 2015-2016 school year.
