PDF: Governor's FY 2009 Budget Recommendation Overview
Students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga could pay at least 5 percent more for tuition next year if Gov. Phil Bredesen’s recommended state budget is approved at the end of the legislative session, UT officials said Wednesday.
“It is going to be a bad year,” said John Petersen, president of the University of Tennessee. “We have to work with the state and take baby steps.”
As the state considers budgetary shortfalls and state agencies face reductions in the coming fiscal year, UT’s board of trustees discussed tuition increases and how to overcome the funding cuts at its winter board meeting Wednesday at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Along with UTC, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and University of Memphis will have tuition increases between 7 and 9 percent, records show.
Dr. Petersen said UTC and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville received less state funding than peer institutions in other states in 2007.
While UTC received $5,759 in appropriations in 2007, Dr. Petersen, who made a report to the board’s finance and administration committee, said the average state funding for a school comparable to UTC is $7,662.
“It’s a stretch and a strain,” he said of the funding issue.
In order to keep up with inflation and increased operating costs, tuition has jumped 90 percent at UTC in the past eight years, and other universities have seen similar increases, according to the report.
The governor’s current budget would provide for a 2 percent across-the-board pay increase for faculty and staff. However, in order for the University of Tennessee system to remain competitive with other states and schools, faculty and staff need at least 3 percent salary increases and promotions, Dr. Petersen said.
Also, he said, he is requesting inflation increases for fuel costs and utility rate increases and funding for facility costs.
“Organizations are only as good as their people,” he said. “We do want the Senate education committee as well as the House to know that we want our employees to be treated as well as other state employees.”
The system budget will be finalized at the board’s June meeting.
Along with voting to consent to the revised budget, the board approved the University of Tennessee’s organizational structure, which was created in 1969 and has been under review.
“That is something we have been looking at since last June,” said Andrea Loughry, vice chairwoman of the board. “It is so complex people were unsure of how it all worked.”
Ms. Loughry said she hopes the board’s understanding of the organizational structure will lead to more cooperation and interaction.
BY THE NUMBERS
Below are the percentage increases in tuition rates at Tennessee’s 4-year colleges over the past 8 years:
* Middle Tennessee — 111.1 percent
* University of Memphis — 105.9 percent
* Tennessee Tech — 105.8 percent
* Austin Peay — 104.1 percent
* Tennessee State — 100.5 percent
* East Tennessee — 93 percent
* UT-Knoxville — 91.1 percent
* UTC — 90.3 percent
* UT Martin — 88.4 percent
Source: University of Tennessee Board of Trustees report
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
