In a meeting on Thursday afternoon, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission approved a recommendation of a five to eight percent increase in University of Memphis and University of Tennessee Knoxville tuition for the 2012-2013 school year.
In THEC's meeting, broadcast over the Internet via live stream, the commission approved the recommendation, which presents several potential tuition increases, contingent on how much money comes from state appropriations.
While THEC approved this recommendation, it will not necessarily become a reality.
"This recommendation is just an initial step, the final approval would not happen until May or June of next year, we would look at the parameters and we would discuss it with the board of regents and they would eventually pass it on to the Tennessee legislature," said David Zettergren, vice president of Business and Finance for The U of M. "The first step is to get the amount of money appropriated to us from Tennessee, we wait to see what those are, then we set fees based on that."
According to Zettergren, appropriations for The U of M have decreased over the past several years. THEC also passed a few recommendations for appropriation, one of which would cut U of M appropriations by five percent.
"They have discussed a possible five percent reduction. It's not confirmed, but is a possibility," said Zettergren. "Right now, the revenues for the state are up, so that's good in terms of the state being able to provide what we're accustomed to."
The tuition recommendation includes three possible increases: a five percent increase, a six and a half percent increase and an eight percent increase, which would raise tuition for a full academic year to $8,019, $8,115 and $8,212 respectively. These numbers include mandatory fees.
Other colleges in the state face a three to six percent increase in tuition, while Tennessee Technology Center faces a five to ten percent increase.
Over the past five years, The University of Memphis has had a 46.4 percent increase in tuition and mandatory fees have risen from $868 to $1246.
"Appropriation has been down, so in order to keep services at the level we're used to, we have to raise fees," said Zettergren. "We try to keep tuition as reasonable as we can, but we want to maintain our high level of quality in our programs."
