UMass eyes tuition hike rather than more belt-tightening
University of Massachusetts officials worried about a smaller total on next year’s state budget are looking to boost tuition rates instead of calling for another round of expense cuts they say could significantly damage the quality of education its students receive.
The university’s trustees and the chancellors of its five campuses were warned UMass may get $30 million less than the $539 million they requested from the state for next year’s budget — largely because Massachusetts is taking in less tax revenue than expected.
UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy told the university’s finance committee the expense cuts have amounted to “death by a thousand cuts.”
“For four years, we have cut our budget in order to come up with a positive margin,” Subbaswamy said. “There’s very limited places we can cut on the expense side, and with revenue, we are doing everything we can.”
Trustee Robert Epstein proposed the university balance any shortfall, in part, by increasing tuition, rather than trying to further cut from campus expenses.
“I don’t see this changing,” Epstein said. “I don’t know how much more you can cut without impacting the quality of service.”
UMass President Martin T. Meehan said talks have begun between his office and the chancellors about what size tuition increase would work.
“We are actively looking at what tuition is likely to be,” Meehan said. “Obviously, there is going to be an increase in tuition. Each of the campuses are looking at their own situation. We have had discussions about it. There will be a slight tuition increase, we are going to try to keep it as small as we can. ... There has to be an increase or else we jeopardize quality.”
Meehan said the issue of tuition increases for the 2017-2018 year would come up at the board of trustees meeting next month.
The finance committee also approved a $26 million cost increase to the already $233 million UMass Boston project to relocate underground utilities across campus — an undertaking Trustee and Massachusetts Education Secretary James Peyser called “the project that will never end” and “bottomless in terms of cost.”
The cost hike is needed, in part, to export more asbestos-contaminated dirt from the Boston campus than initially expected.
“I hope there is a significant reflection on this project,” Peyser said. “We should not be going into a project that produces overruns of this size.”