Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1974 Version B [PAGE 432]

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[December 19

costs in 1974-75, and it is even possible that fuel cost increases will lead to the necessity of layoffs during the current year. In a second action of the IBHE on December 4, 1973, the following recommendations concerning tuition were adopted: 1. That the Board of Higher Education reaffirm its policy adopted in December 1970 that public senior universities maintain tuition charges at a level of onethird of instructional cost calculated on the appropriate system base, with the provision that the Illinois State Scholarship Commission be funded to offset the effects upon access of any tuition increase and that the institutions and the Illinois State Scholarship Commission be urged to make information of aid programs available to all. 2. That the Board devise, no later than July 1974, a plan for maintaining currency between instructional costs for undergraduate students and tuition charges under this policy. 3. That the Board devise, no later than October 1974, a plan for appropriate tuition charges for graduate and professional studies. 4. That, as the first step in obtaining currency between costs and tuition under existing Board policy, tuitions be increased in each public senior university system so as to generate at least a 6 per cent increase in income fund receipts in Fiscal Year 1975. The budget recommendations of the IBHE assume that the university systems will each achieve a 6 per cent increase in its income fund as a step toward the stated policy that tuition shall equal one-third of undergraduate instructional costs. Actually, the University of Illinois would need to increase tuition by about 38 per cent ($186) to achieve this policy for Fiscal Year 1975. A 6 per cent increase will make no progress toward this policy. The achievement of a 6 per cent increase in our income fund for 1974-75 over 1973-74 requires more than a simple 6 per cent increase in tuition levels. Part of the income fund comes from nontuition sources and part of it is made up of carry-overs from previous years. Careful analysis indicates that to achieve this 6 per cent increase in the income fund will require an increase of $35 per academic year in our basic tuition charges with proportionate increases for tuition charges for part-time students, for students in medicine and dentistry programs, and for nonresident students. In order to meet the deficiency of about $1,000,000 discussed earlier, an additional increase in the basic tuition charge of $25 per academic year with proportionate increases for other tuition charges is necessary. Part of the income from this additional increase would be made available to the Illinois State Scholarship Commission if calculations indicate that this increase has created funding problems for ISSC. It is, therefore, my recommendation that tuition charges for 1974-75 be increased by $60 per academic year with proportionate increases for part-time students, students in medicine and dentistry, and nonresident students. Of this increase, $35 is required to meet the IBHE budget recommendations; $25 to meet the critical deficiencies outlined earlier in this report. This recommendation is well within the policy of the IBHE that tuition should equal one-third of undergraduate instructional costs, includes funds for ISSC to meet the projected award needs of a tuition increase slightly above that projected by IBHE, and will not change the relative ranking of the Universityof Illinois near the midpoint of all land-grant universities with regard to tuition charges. I believe that the level proposed is acceptable to the staff of the IBHE and can be defended successfully in our relationships with the Bureau of the Budget and the General Assembly. In your action in November, you approved the "waiver" of tuition increases for freshmen students at the Chicago Circle campus. As a part of the budget recommendations of the IBHE, funds are provided to support a change in the ISSC "cut-off" date to October 1. With this change and with special effort on our part, I am persuaded that the special treatment for freshmen at Chicago Circle is unnecessary, and I recommend that the tuition increase recommended above be applied uniformly on all campuses. While this recommendation is