Bob Adams

The Tennessee Board of Regents may not follow the University of Tennessee System in capping tuition increases at 6 percent, officials said.

“The University of Tennessee is starting at a higher base than where we are with comparable universities,” said Bob Adams, vice chancellor of the Board of Regents, who spoke Thursday to the Finance Committee on a conference call.

A 6 percent tuition increase at UT Knoxville would take tuition from $5,120 to $5,427 per semester, which is 16.7 percent higher than the $4,652 tuition at the University of Memphis, a Board of Regents four-year university, Mr. Adams said.

If tuition increases are capped at 6 percent for Board of Regents colleges and universities, three schools would lose money after the $56 million in statewide higher-education cuts, said Dr. Charles Manning, chancellor of the Board of Regents. East Tennessee State University would be about 0.2 percent in the red; Tennessee Tech University would be about 0.3 percent, and the University of Memphis would be about 0.4 percent, according to board figures.

Those negative numbers would be compounded by faculty promotions, fuel and facility costs, Dr. Manning said.

Although three schools would be hurting, a 6 percent tuition increase at Chattanooga State Technical Community College would increase its total revenue by nearly 1 percent, according to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

“This particular year,” Dr. Manning said, “there is a strong reason for trying to be very conservative.”

Dr. Manning urged board members to consider Gov. Phil Bredesen’s publicized request for the board to minimize tuition increases, taking steps similar to the UT system.

“Their circumstances may be slightly different in some way,” Gov. Bredesen said in a May 23 story in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “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.”

Lydia Lenker, the governor’s press secretary, said Thursday that Gov. Bredesen could not comment on Board of Regents tuition increases until a final decision is made by the board in June.

Board of Regents member Howard W. Roddy, who lives in Chattanooga, said he thinks tuition can be capped at 6 percent, but board members are waiting for more information about the impact of faculty promotions, fuel costs and other expenses.

“Everyone has a tight budget this year,” he said. “We certainly want to cooperate with the state and the students to keep increases as low as possible.”

The finance committee will meet again June 10, prior to the full board meeting June 28, to hear recommendations from the chancellor’s office for tuition and fee increases.