Legislators are questioning the need for across-the-board tuition increases over the next five years throughout the University of Hawaii system amid what some see as a failure to manage costs.

"The community doesn’t really have a sense that the regents have been very aggressive with managing the costs," Sen. David Ige, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said after a UH tuition briefing Tuesday. "Some of the fact that we lost money with the Stevie Wonder concert or that the regents have authorized buyouts of contracts and all those kinds of things — from the general public perspective — provides a sense that they’re not doing as good a job as others might expect in terms of managing the costs."

In October 2011, the Board of Regents approved a five-year schedule to increase tuition at all UH campuses each year from 2012 through 2017. At the end of that period, in-state tuition at UH-Manoa for undergraduates will have increased about 35 percent.

During Tuesday’s tuition briefing before Senate Ways and Means and Higher Education committee members, legislators questioned the university’s costs and efforts to cut them, as well as how costs were weighed when formulating the tuition increases. Lawmakers said that it appeared UH considered its tuition in relation to similar institutions — it says tuition at UH-Manoa falls a little below the national average — much more heavily than it paid attention to tuition as it relates to the cost of instruction.

"There’s no factoring in on the cost of instruction into what’s (an) appropriate tuition level," Ige said. "I mean, the tuition level is primarily driven by where the tuition falls amongst peers and maybe some of the cost drivers."

Linda Johnsrud, executive vice president of academic affairs and provost for the UH system, said the reduction of state funding made it necessary to increase tuition revenue to keep UH running.

"I think it was really important that we describe to them (the senators) how we use tuition and why tuition has become more important in our budget than it ever was before because general funds have decreased," she said after the briefing.

UH Chief Financial Officer Howard Todo said state general funds appropriated to UH declined by $77 million from fiscal year 2009 to 2012, though a portion of that came from pay cuts to faculty and administration. At the same time, enrollment in the UH system increased by about 10,000 students, Johnsrud said.

Sen. Brian Taniguchi, chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, said he believes the state should shoulder some of the blame for the tuition increases.

"I think what’s eroded over the years is the state’s commitment to higher education. I think that’s really what’s at the core of some of these problems," Taniguchi said after Tuesday’s briefing. "We’ve kind of not funded it like we did in the past. We’ve cut back pretty significantly. And the tuition, special funds, and what we heard today (at the briefing) are just kind of the indications of the trends that institutions go through when they’re faced with these kinds of issues.

"I think we really need to recommit to higher education and we need to put money towards that commitment."

Increased tuition revenue will go toward covering utility bills and faculty collective bargaining costs, but UH officials said they will also continue to expand financial aid funding, raising the amount of tuition revenue that funds financial aid by 1 percentage point each school year at the four-year colleges.

By the 2016-2017 school year, 20 percent of tuition revenue at the four-year colleges will be dedicated to financial aid. Community colleges will continue to put 11 percent of tuition revenue toward financial aid.

"I think it’s important to know, too, you can’t set tuition low enough to be low enough for your lowest-income students, so what you need to do is set it high enough that middle-class families and upper-class families can still afford to pay for it, but you generate enough revenue that you can then help those least able to pay," Johnsrud said during the briefing. "And that’s what this does. This takes tuition revenues and puts it back into aid for those least able to afford it."

Some legislators expressed concern that students are paying higher tuition to subsidize other students’ education.

"I think I’m more concerned about the tuition fee because it has been hiked up in order to accommodate or to support students that are not able to afford it," Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland said at the briefing. "I want to know what that differential is. If my child went to the university, how much more are they paying because of the subsidy that is going to others?"