Arguing that the state legislature has failed to provide adequate funding, University of Illinois officials Friday proposed a new, two-tiered tuition structure with hefty increases for next year’s freshmen.
If the system’s board of trustees approves the plan in March, tuition for new students at the school’s two largest campuses would rise 37 percent over current levels in two years.
At the Urbana-Champaign campus, the current tuition of $3,724 a year would jump to $4,410 next fall for new students and to $5,106 in fall 2002. At the Chicago campus, where annual tuition stands at $3,232, the charge for incoming freshman would rise to $3,830 next fall and to $4,430 the following year.
Far more modest tuition hikes would be imposed on current students because they have not had time to plan for the increase, administrators said. The increase for existing UIC students would be 3 percent next fall. At Urbana-Champaign, the hike would be 5 percent.
Officials said the school would offer additional financial aid to offset the higher costs for the neediest students.
“High quality costs money, and our newest students will directly benefit from the new programs and systems we will put in place during the next several years,” U. of I. President James Stukel said.
Though higher education has received steady increases in state aid over the years, university officials argued that state funds haven’t kept pace with the system’s overall budget needs. The school gets revenue from a variety of public and private funding sources, but U. of I. officials contend that the share derived from state taxes has declined from 49 percent of the university’s total budget in 1980 to only 31.5 percent today.
Meanwhile, they argued, many private schools over the last two decades have imposed far greater tuition increases than the U. of I. To stay competitive with those schools–many of which now charge tuitions in the mid-$20,000 range–U. of I. needs to close the resource gap, Stukel said.
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“Why shouldn’t the people of Illinois have a university that’s comparable to the privates at a reasonable cost?” Stukel said.
U. of I. officials plan to use some of the new money to expand course offerings in high-demand areas such as information technology, business, arts, humanities and the social sciences. They also expect to increase library hours and services and improve academic advising across the colleges.
The Urbana-Champaign campus expects to hire 150 new faculty members. The UIC campus hopes to hire between 50 and 100 new faculty members.
William D. Engelbrecht, chairman of the U. of I.’s board of trustees, said the increases were important to keep the university competitive with not only private universities like Northwestern, but also top-rated public schools in the Midwest such as the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.