U Regents approve tuition increase
The University of Minnesota's Board of Regents approve the institution's budget today, finalizing plans to increase tuition for student by 7.25 percent for this coming year.
The final decision comes at the tail end of months of speculation and sparring between University officials and lawmakers at the Capitol.
Some called the tuition increases outrageous. "I think the main mission of the University is to educate our public," Tom Rukavina , DFL-Virginia, said. "You can't do that if you're pricing yourself out of business, that's what they're doing."
U officials maintained they were doing what they could. Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said the school do what it has to to withstand the cuts, but they could mean overall budget cuts with slowing down investments, and any additional tuition increases would be a last resort.
For the Pawlenty camp, they dismissed the notion that the cuts would have any effect on the school. The Gov. sought to cut over $27 million from the school in his budget plan.
Pawlenty spokesman Alex Carey told the Daily the $27 million represents just 0.9 percent of the University's budget.
"The 'U' got a 17 percent base increase and still raised tuition 7 percent for the last school year," he said.
They're not basing their tuition increases on anything having to do with the money they receive from the state."
Ultimately, toward the end of the session, Rukavina was calling for a tution freeze and introducing legislation intended to prevent further increases.
Depsite that, the U maintained the school had autonomy, and the state couldn't mandate its budget.
That got two harsh responses from Rukavina.
"They're going to lose a lot of friends at the Capitol if they jack up that tuition," he said. "They're pricing themselves out of work if they keep going up 7.5 percent."
And as far as the provision in the bill that said the U couldn't raise tuition? Rukavina had some choice words for Fitz.
"Tell him to sue me," Rukavina said. "It's in the bill, tell him to sue me."
This marks the end to a relatively positive session for the U. They received over $100 million of its bonding request and state funding for a near-$300 million project in its new biomedical buildings.