The University of South Carolina Board of Trustees approved a 3.2 percent tuition increase Friday.
The hike will raise in-state tuition by $171 per semester to $5,579 and out-of-state tuition by $456 per semester to $14,720. The Board also approved housing and meal plan rate increases of about 3.8 percent.
According to University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides, the tuition hike roughly corresponds to the overall inflation rate of higher education and is similar to the university’s previous increases in the recent past.
This year, university administrators lobbied South Carolina lawmakers to provide the money necessary to achieve a zero percent tuition increase.
“We have taken the lead with respect to what we call tuition timeout. We didn’t make it this year, and I was very disappointed by that and so were our students,” Pastides said.
School leadership proposed a $10.1 million increase in state funding and requested money to cover state-mandated rises in employee wages and health insurance costs.
“You can’t keep tuition at zero percent and keep operating a great university. There has to be a state-appropriated increase to be able to keep up with unfunded mandates and to keep up with inflation,” Pastides said.
The percentage of the university’s budget covered by state funding has dwindled significantly within the past 15 years. According to Leslie Brunelli, associate vice president for Business and Finance, tuition and fees now cover 47.5 percent of the university’s budget, while state appropriations cover only 10.8 percent. Those numbers contrast significantly with the 1999-2000 school year, when tuition and fees covered 25 percent and the state covered 39 percent. Ultimately, the declines in state funding have shifted the university’s source of income from state appropriations to students, said Brunelli. The transferal has been met with criticism from administrators.
“Public universities are public goods, and we’ve lost sight of that, “ said Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, dean of the college of arts and sciences.
This year, the university faced more financial challenges due to new, unfunded state mandates, the most expensive being a two percent salary increase for all university employees. The state also denied funding for the mandated implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which will expand health care benefits for adjunct professors and some part-time faculty and staff.
“As the proportion of state funding has dwindled down to 10 percent or less for us, we have to wonder whether they ought to be able to regulate us on everything we do. Other states have begun to have more regulatory freedom, and we would ask for that as well,” Pastides said.
According to Pastides, maintaining affordability will continue to be a priority for university leaders. Administration plans to strengthen collaboration with local business leaders and with other South Carolina public institutions to gain support for future efforts to ease the burden on students.
“Important things rarely get done in one year. Many of the initiatives that we’ve been successful with in the past relative to state funding have taken two or even three years, so we’re down, but we’re not out,” Pastides said.
Pastides encouraged students to get involved in efforts to attain more state support. Reaching out to lawmakers online takes mere minutes and adds momentum to administration’s ongoing push to minimize tuition increases in the future, he said.
“It’s not always like a big protest with placards — it can be an email to their elected official. Instead of being seen as potentially victimized by the lower state funding, students can become actively engaged in the battle for higher education,” Pastides said.