Tuition increases proposed for UH

University of Hawaii students would see modest tuition increases of no more than 2 percent annually from 2017-18 through 2019-20 under a three-year tuition schedule being rolled out by UH President David Lassner’s administration this week.

UH-Manoa undergraduate students who are Hawaii residents would be paying $11,520 annually beginning in 2019-20, up from the $10,344 they are paying this year. Local undergraduates at UH Hilo and UH West Oahu would see similar but smaller increases.

Generally, in-state tuition for full-time Manoa undergraduates would see 2 percent increases, about $216 more, in each of the three years from 2017-18 through 2019-20. Full-time resident graduate students would see a $312 increase during each of the same three years.

Out-of-state undergraduate and graduate students at Manoa would also pay $216 and $312 more each year.

Professional school students at Manoa would see no increase in tuition.

Full-time resident undergraduate and graduate students at other campuses would see no increase in the first of the three years and then see 1 percent increases in 2018-19 and 2019-20. That increase amounts to $72 more each year for resident undergraduates and $120 more each year for graduate students.

“We’re still affordable. You can go to UH Manoa, put it on a credit card and graduate like you just bought a brand-new car,” UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said. “You can pay $30,000 in debt down over time considering the amount of money you’d make over your lifetime with a college degree. It’s still a fantastic deal.”

The three-year plan would come after two years of 5 percent increases this year and next year. The Board of Regents in May voted to lower the percentage increase for each year of the last two years of the previous schedule from 7 percent annually.

Risa Dickson, UH vice president for academic affairs, said the three-year tuition hike plan is preliminary and will more than likely undergo changes after input from the Board of Regents and the public, which will have the chance to weigh in at 11 public hearings statewide beginning in March.

The first public airing takes place during an informational briefing at Thursday’s regents meeting in Hilo.

UH officials said the plan is an attempt to strike a balance between keeping tuition affordable for students and catching up on a deferred maintenance schedule that has a current systemwide backlog of $503 million.

While the administration finds no basis for a tuition hike for general operating expenses over the next three years, there is a need to find revenues to help catch up with years of deferred maintenance, said Kalbert Young, UH vice president for budget and finance.

“The tuition proposal is rooted solely around the modernization of campuses,” Young said. “This is not looking to fund on the operational side.”

“We’re hoping to be able to keep our operations at the same level given the number of programs and projects that we’re working on to increase efficiencies, but we still need money for deferred maintenance and modernization of classrooms,” Dickson said.

The Manoa campus, the largest campus and one of the oldest in the system, is behind in maintenance by about $460 million, Young said. That’s the reason Manoa students would see three years of larger increases instead of the two years of smaller increases that would be given to those at other campuses.

The UH system received a fair amount of general obligation dollars to help with construction, maintenance and related issues through the early 2000s, Young said.

“Even back then it wasn’t enough to pay for all the annual needs, but it was still a significant portion,” Young said. “But since that time … the state has had an increasing amount of other needs to address, and over that same time the amount of money that the state has been contributing to the university has declined.”

Young said, “We’re talking about 10-15 years of year-over-year-over-year compounding of unmet maintenance needs, and that’s where we are now, where it’s in excess of $500 million across the entire system.”

The planned increase would take care of only a small amount of the money needed for deferred maintenance, he said. Over the three years, the plan would contribute only $100 million toward the $503 million in deferred maintenance, he said.

“We are still hopeful that the state will continue to fund the university for capital projects at some level, but this approach of using tuition is recognition that the state has not been able to afford to meet up to those needs,” he said.

Dickson said that “holding tuition constant with these moderate increases keeps us from being less competitive” with other comparable universities. “It keeps us in line.”

Financial aid to UH students would also rise as a result of the three-year plan. UH-Manoa policy requires that 20 percent of all tuition revenue must go to financial aid. Other campuses require about the same percentage.