Every time the Arizona Board of Regents meets, the regents discuss some of the largest issues facing Arizona’s college students. But this week’s meeting at the UA, on April 7 and 8, is one of the most important of the entire year as the regents will set the cost of tuition for the upcoming academic year.
Tuition largely dominates the agenda for this week’s meetings as the regents have to approve tuition proposals from all three of the in-state universities.
Here are the highlights of UA President Ann Weaver Hart’s tuition proposal for the UA main campus:
Also proposed is discontinuing the two and three-year master’s tuition guarantees that were implemented in a UA pilot program in 2015-2016.
The UA is also proposing to increase two existing differential tuition and program fees that create three new program fees for undergraduate students, and eight new program fees for graduate students.
Five existing class fees have proposed increases, and there’s one new class fee proposed in humanities.
UA undergraduate housing will see a proposed average of a 4 percent increase, which is roughly $275 per year.
The incremental gross tuition and fee revenues are estimated at $219.2 million under Hart’s tuition proposals, according to the regents’ executive summary included in their agenda.
The agenda stated the breakdown is $191.5 million from base tuition and $27.7 million from differential, program, class and mandatory fees. Of the $191.5 million in base tuition, 72 percent ($137.7 million) is attributed to enrollment growth and change in the mix of students and 28 percent ($53.8 million) from rate increases.
Other big agenda items include the UA asking the board for authorization to:
The UA is also asking the board to approve the appointments of three new regents’ professors, Renu Malhotra, Ronald Breiger and Frank Gohlke, from the UA for their exceptional achievements.
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