ISU board OKs higher costs despite concerns for it exceeding state recommedation

For 2014-15, ISU tuition/mandatory fees amounted to $8,416 for the academic year. With the increases — 1.95 percent each of the next two years — tuition/fees will increase to $8,580 for 2015-16 (up $164) and to $8,746 for 2016-17 (up $166).

Those figures include tuition plus a $100 per semester mandatory fee supporting the student recreation center. The figures are for full-time, in-state undergraduate students.

“This increase reflects the minimum amount we feel is needed to continue to provide a quality education for growing numbers of students in the face of what have become annual reductions in state funding,” said ISU President Dan Bradley. “Tuition and fees at Indiana State remain the most affordable of the state’s four main residential institutions.”

The increase will fund university priorities that include student success initiatives, increases in such areas as health insurance and utilities and allow for some deferred maintenance of campus facilities to be addressed.

Trustee Jeff Taylor raised concerns the increase exceeds the 1.65 percent recommended by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. The difference between what the commission suggests, versus ISU’s recommended increase, represents “a relatively small number of dollars,” he said. The amount doesn’t make or break ISU’s budget, he said.

His concern “is with the message we either intentionally or unintentionally send when we ignore their recommendation.” The Legislature “by and large treated us pretty well this past year,” with about $100 million for capital projects, Taylor said.

ISU took a loss in its operating appropriation, “but we also didn’t make our numbers” in terms of four-year graduation rates, a performance measure that impacts state funding, Taylor said. In exceeding the commission’s recommended tuition increase, “I’m concerned there will be a message taken from that that is not intended,” he said.

After the meeting, he said he abstained from voting. “Dr. Bradley deserves our support,” Taylor said. “I’m not sure he’s wrong. I”m not sure I’m right.”

Trustee Ed Pease said he supported the recommended increase. “I know the decision has not been an easy one,” he said. In recent years, ISU has made extraordinary progress at a time of declining state resources.

“I hate it for our kids that we’re going to have to do some things we wish we didn’t have to do,” Pease said. But, to maintain the momentum and quality of services and programs, “I don’t think we’ve been given any choice” but to approve the increases recommended by ISU’s administration.

Trustee David Campbell said he also supported ISU’s recommended increases, although he’s asked many questions. He believes the university has been well served by having “minimal, modest tuition increases implemented over a long period of time and avoiding situations where we find ourselves having to ask for superinflationary fee increases.”

Campbell believes that’s the “right approach” for ISU.

With the budget passed by the 2015 General Assembly, ISU will see a $1.4 million decline in state appropriations over the next two years, to $65.9 million in 2016-17. In the last seven to eight years, ISU has lost close to $10 million in state appropriations.

Trustees also approved university budgets for 2015-16, including a $171.1 million general fund budget that reflects a 7.9-percent increase, primarily from the increase in tuition and fees and enrollment. Student tuition now accounts for 53.2 percent of the total general fund budget, compared with 38.7 percent from state funding.

The 2015-16 operating budget contains a projected 2-percent increase for compensation and amounts set aside for faculty and staff target salary programs; increases will be determined once enrollment numbers are known.

The minimum hourly rate for full-time, benefit-eligible employees will increase to $11 from the current minimum of $10.20 per hour. The budget also reflects a 2-percent increase in student wages and a 2-percent increase in university scholarships.

The university is setting aside $4.7 million in a general fund reserve to absorb revenue shortfalls.

In other action, trustees authorized McKee to secure final financing for the $20.7 million renovation of Blumberg Hall, which began this spring and will be completed by July 2016. They also authorized the university to move forward with the steps necessary to renovate Cromwell Hall starting in May 2016 at an estimated cost of $23 million. ISU is in the process of renovating each of the four residence halls that make up the Sycamore Towers, located on the west end of campus between Fourth and Fifth streets and Cherry and Chestnut streets.

Mills Hall, the first one renovated, is near completion.