Phil Bredesen

NASHVILLE — Gov. Phil Bredesen said Thursday he is “very pleased” by the pledge from the UT system’s president to keep undergraduate tuition hikes to 6 percent.

Gov. Bredesen said he hopes the state’s other system of higher education, the State Board of Regents, also can keep increases in check.

Despite state cuts to higher education in the just-passed 2008-09 budget, UT System President John Petersen said Wednesday that tuition for undergraduate students will be limited to 6 percent. Bredesen noted that he had feared there would be “pressure” on the University of Tennessee system to enact “substantially higher” increases.

“I think that he (Petersen) has done what he offered to do and I asked him to do which is to undertake some of the same soul searching that the rest of government is going to have to undertake in these times and make some choices and selections,” the governor said.

Gov. Bredesen, who recently voiced interest in higher education officials keeping tuition increases below 10 percent, said he has not spoken directly with Board of Regents officials yet but would like to see similar soul searching.

“Their circumstances may be slightly different in some ways,” Gov. Bredesen said of the Regents system, which includes two-year community colleges as well as four-year and graduate universities. “I’m not saying 6 percent is your number.

“But I certainly would expect the Board of Regents to do the same kind of internal examination of their expenses and trying to find if there are some areas that could be reasonably cut rather than simply passing on these costs to students and their families, and I expect them to do that, and I believe they will,” he said.

In a recent interview, Board of Regents Chancellor Charles Manning said officials “certainly are going to try” to keep tuition increases below 10 percent. The Board of Regents institutions might offer some early retirement packages or look more at outside contracting to save money, he said.

One challenge the Board of Regents faces that’s different from UT is the two-year colleges it operates such as Chattanooga State Technical Community College, Dr. Manning said. State government provides 60 percent of the two-year schools’ total funding. The state provides 50 percent of four-year universities’ funding, he said.

Board of Regents spokeswoman Mary Morgan said Thursday that officials in the system, which has an estimated 180,000 students at 45 institutions, “hope it will be below that (10 percent), but we just don’t know at this point.”

Earlier this week Mr. Petersen said he would recommend tuition increases remain at 6 percent for undergraduates despite state cuts of $56 million in the 2008-09 budget. Lawmakers passed the $27.7 billion budget shortly after midnight Thursday before adjourning their annual session.