"The real question is, 'What will the size of the fee increase be?' " Wilson said.
UMass president Jack Wilson, after speaking at a meeting at the Statehouse to promote higher education, said âThe real question is not whether there will be a (student) fee increase. The real question is what will the size of the fee increase be?"BOSTON - University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson warned that the university is facing a $54.5 million budget gap for the next fiscal year, and that a fee increase for students may be needed to help close it.
Wilson said he anticipates that an increase of 2 to 3 percent may be needed to cover the costs of inflation, as is common. He said he doesn’t know yet if a substantial raise will be needed to help eliminate the deficit. He expects to announce a decision in early June.
“The real question is not whether there will be a fee increase,” Wilson said after speaking before state legislators and educators at the Statehouse. “The real question is what will the size of the fee increase be? That will really depend upon the ultimate outcome of the legislative budget process. It’s really too early for us to say what the size of the fee increase will be for the coming year.”
Wilson was a key speaker during a Statehouse meeting to organize a new caucus of legislators to promote public higher education and work for more state support. Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, is the Senate chair of the caucus and Rep. Sean Garballey, D-Arlington, is the House chair.
In his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, Gov. Deval L. Patrick provided $429 million for the five-campus university system including $11 million to allow other campuses to retain tuition from out-of-state students. The flagship Amherst campus is currently allowed to keep out-of-state tuition.
The $429 million is the same as this year.
If the university system receives $429 million for the next fiscal year, it would be facing $54.5 million gap, according to Wilson. The gap would be caused by the loss of $37.8 million in federal stimulus funds used in this year’s university budget and the lack of state funding for $12.7 million to finance raises in union contracts and $4 million in increases for fringe benefits under those contracts.
Patrick’s budget is only the start. The state House of Representatives will release its version of the fiscal 2012 budget in April and the Senate will follow with its budget in May. A compromise House-Senate budget would be approved and sent to Patrick in June.
Wilson said half the university’s budget deficit would be eliminated through cuts in expenditures and the other half by raising revenues.
Wilson said he will be asking state legislators to boost state funding.
“Anything that the Legislature restores between now and June will be cuts that we don’t have to make or fee increases we don’t have to make,” said Wilson, who is planning to step down as president on June 30 to make way for a new president, Robert L. Caret, now president of Towson University in Maryland. “People will see a direct result of whatever happens in the appropriation process.”
In June of last year, University of Massachusetts trustees voted to keep intact for the current academic year a $1,500 fee increase approved in 2009 for students.
During the 2009-10 academic year, the university offset the $1,500 fee increase by providing students with rebates up to $1,100 on a sliding scale, depending on financial need. Because of the state fiscal crisis, no rebate was provided for this academic year.
Tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates at the flagship Amherst campus are $11,732. Of that amount, tuition is $1,714; fees are $10,018. Food and housing are in addition to tuition and fees. Trustees for state university, community and university campuses target fees because they retain that money on campus, while most tuition money generally goes into the state’s general fund.
Other speakers included Richard M. Freeland, commissioner of the state Department of Higher Education, and Max Page, a professor at the Amherst campus and vice president of the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, a network of faculty, students and staff at all the state’s 29 university, state and community college campuses.
Speakers emphasized the importance of public higher education to the state’s economy and training of workers.
Freeland said that state support for public higher education has declined over the past decade. State money provided $8,700 per student in 2000 but state funding has dropped to $6,500 per student.
Rosenberg said members of the caucus are planning to tour campuses outside their districts in the spring.
“Our public higher education institutions didn’t cause our current fiscal crisis, but they will most certainly help lead us out it,” Rosenberg said. “If we don’t strengthen our public higher education system we run the risk of becoming a second-class state with a second-class economy.”