Tuition will go up at least several hundred dollars thanks to the 19 percent budget cut the Utah State Legislature agreed on last week, but the hike decisions are coming early for several academic programs.
The U Board of Trustees will vote Tuesday morning on whether to increase the differential tuitions for the genetic counseling, educational psychology and biomedical informatics programs. Each program’s current level of tuition revenue is insufficient to keep up with operational costs, according to a report submitted to the trustees.
But even with students paying more, each program is still relatively cheap compared to others around the country.
“The proposed (tuition increase) will clearly be felt by students,” wrote Julia Hood, a graduate student and student representative for the educational psychology program, in a letter to the trustees. But it’s still necessary to maintain the quality of the program as budget cuts make it harder to do so, she wrote. She and student representatives from the other programs have announced their support of increasing the individual tuitions, agreeing that the costs are still lower than many other colleges.
The genetic counseling program’s leaders want to double tuition from about $117 per credit hour to about $255 per credit hour. It’s just below average when compared with the cost of the average genetic counseling program’s cost around the country, according to the report.
“Even by raising the tuition differential, this program will still be competitive with other programs in regards to tuition,” wrote Tara Newcomb, a graduate student in genetic counseling, in her letter to the trustees.
The educational psychology and biomedical informatics programs would be instituting tuitions specific to their programs—$50 per credit hour and $130 per credit hour, respectively. Even after these increases, both programs would still be under the average when compared with dozens of other schools, according to comparisons included in each program’s report to the trustees.
Without the increases, the programs wouldn’t be able to afford the staff and materials they need, especially when the 19 percent budget cut is doled out around the campus—making the trustees’ Tuesday decision a clear one, according to each program’s student representatives.
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