The USC Board of Trustees approved a $1.08 billion budget Thursday that includes a 3.6 percent increase in tuition for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
The $1.08 billion eight-campus budget will take effect July 1. The new operating budget does not restore the $55.4 million in state appropriation cuts since last June and does not incorporate $30 million in stimulus funds USC expects to receive over the next two years, which are intended for non-recurring expenses. The 3.6 percent tuition increase is actually the lowest percentage year-to-year increase since 2001, with in-state undergraduate tuition at the Columbia campus increasing to $4,578 per semester and non-resident tuition increasing to $11,866 per semester. "This small of a percentage increase is great. We were expecting to see a much larger increase, but we saw the opposite," said Student Body President Meredith Ross. Tuition could have risen by 16.5 percent in order to make up for the $55 million budget shortfall, USC President Harris Pastides said.
State appropriations, which made up 40 percent of university revenue in 2001, currently make up only 21 percent, and will be further decreased to 16.3 percent for the whole university system and 15 percent on the Columbia campus in the coming fiscal year. Even adjusted for inflation, the state hasn't provided such a small percentage of the school's funding since 1973. Because the budget shortfall will no longer be made up in tuition increases, the university will make cuts in the coming year. Some immediate consequences include more than 500 fewer class sections, the elimination of faculty and staff positions, and the delay of a major and much-needed overhaul of the school's data management system. USC is preparing to make more cuts mid-year. But despite USC admitting more students than ever while eliminating 500 class sections, Pastides said there will be no interference with any student's ability to graduate. The tuition increase will raise nearly $7.7 million in new funds to be strategically allocated to academic programs and services, academic support and student affairs programs, and general institutional costs and central operations. A $4 increase to the student activity fee, pushed for by student government, was also approved. Pastides ensured that the "conservative but strong" budget preserves the core mission of USC - teaching, research and service - and that he had pledged to keep tuition increases as low as possible in order to "increase - not diminish - access to the University of South Carolina."
2 comments