Tuition Fee News

cybermom
Tue, 22 May 2007 09:01:00 +0000

UF would go it alone for now on tuition fee

Luis Zaragoza | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted May 22, 2007
The University of Florida will be the only state university charging freshmen a new tuition add-on fee this fall to help pay for more faculty – if the proposal becomes law.

Officials at Florida State University and the University of South Florida – two other schools that would be eligible to charge the “tuition differential” – have announced they will wait a year because they did not have enough time to notify incoming freshmen of the potential cost.
Supporters of the proposed fee say the schools need the extra money to hire more faculty and counselors specifically to benefit undergraduates.

The fee would start off at less than $100 a semester on top of regular tuition and could rise to several hundred dollars a year after several years before reaching pre-set caps of 40 percent of tuition at UF and FSU and 30 percent of tuition at USF.

UF initially struck out on its own this year in hopes of getting a $500 per semester “academic-enhancement” fee. After meeting some opposition during the legislative session, a new proposal was drafted calling for a “tuition differential,” with FSU and USF grouped with UF to increase the bill’s political appeal. The three were selected based on having the highest amount of research-based funding among the state’s 11 public colleges and universities.

The University of Central Florida did not oppose the legislation, though it complained that the criteria used to determine eligibility for the fee would prevent it from charging a tuition differential in the future.

The bill faces an uncertain future because Gov. Charlie Crist has indicated that he opposes legislation that would raise the out-of-pocket costs of students at public universities.

Supporters say that by the 2010-11 academic year, the fee could raise more than $70 million.

State Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, the chairwoman of the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee, said she and her colleagues were met with an “unbelievable” number of calls during the legislative session in support of the bill establishing the fee.

As of Monday, the state Legislature’s leadership had not yet sent the bill to Crist for review. Once it does, Crist would have 15 days to sign the bill into law or veto it.

State Sen. Charlie Justice, D-St. Petersburg, also a member of the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee, said while there’s always a need for more school funding, the tuition differential “is a big price to ask students to bear.”

The tuition differential is separate from a proposed 5 percent increase in base tuition included in the state’s $72 billion budget proposal. All 11 state colleges and universities are counting on the base increase to help keep up with rising costs.

Crist has until Thursday to sign the budget and kill off parts of it through line-item vetoes.

Current Florida undergraduates pay the same $73.71 a semester unit tuition regardless of which state campus they attend. If the 5 percent increase goes through, the figure would rise to $77.39.

Luis Zaragoza can be reached at 407-420-5718 or lzaragoza@orlandosentinel.com.