HSU strives to maintain affordability

ARKADELPHIA — Henderson State University officials say a modest in-state tuition increase recently approved by the board of trustees is part of a concerted effort to maintain affordability for students.

The board approved an increase of $6 per credit hour from $215 to $221 for in-state undergraduate students during its regular meeting in May. The annual fee increase of $195 resulted in an increase of only 2.5 percent in the cost of annual attendance. Both rates were the lowest for Henderson in the last decade.

Graduate tuition for in-state students will increase by $7 per credit hour from $262 to $269. The 2.67-percent increase for graduate students is also the university’s lowest in a decade.

Fees for graduate students will increase by $90 in 2017-18 for a bump of 2.22 percent in the cost of annual attendance. The rate ranks second-best in the past 10 years after a 1.26-percent increase for the previous academic year.

Brett Powell, vice president for finance and administration, said he attempted to align the increases to the change in the consumer price index as closely as possible. The university’s costs are not directly related as goods and services purchased by an institution of higher education are not identical to measurements for the index.

“If the state is funding a third of our budget and that funding is flat, we have to recover some of that cost somewhere,” Powell said. “So it crept up a little bit higher than I was hoping for and what the board was wanting us to do, but I think we still kept it at a very reasonable rate of increase.

“I am trying to keep it as low as possible. We

recognize college has become less affordable over the years. Part of our mission is to serve students who cannot afford to pay the full cost of tuition. The more we raise it, the less affordable it gets. We stay mindful that affordability is important to us.”

Tuition rates for in-state undergraduates and graduate students decreased by $5 per credit hour for the 2013-2014 academic year, but changes in fees increased the annual cost of attendance by 4.3 percent and

3.23 percent, respectively. Powell said Henderson and higher education as a whole works to manage costs while state funding has remained relatively flat for the past decade.

“While we are funded well and we certainly appreciate every dollar we get, the equation every time the state funding stays flat,” Powell said. “We have to ask students to pay more of a percentage of the cost every time the state funding is held flat.”

Tuition and fees for undergraduates at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro will increase by 3.4 percent for 201718. Undergraduates at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville will see their tuition increase by

3.19 percent in the fall.

The University of Arkansas System approved cost of attendance increases in May for every campus in the system. The most modest increase approved will be applied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where undergraduate tuition and fees will increase by 2.74 percent.

Other increases for university campuses range from

3.49 percent at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith to 8.02 percent for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Increases in tuition and fees for in-district students attending the system’s community colleges range from

2.24 percent for the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana to

6.47 percent at Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas.

Powell joined Henderson in August after serving as director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education for 18 months. He was previously director of financial services with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, associate vice chancellor for finance with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and vice president for administrative services at Ouachita Baptist University for nine years.

His role with the ADHE offered insight into the financial challenges facing all of higher education. He said scholarships are another factor as higher education costs continue to increase as schools compete with each other for students. Hikes in scholarship amounts can drive tuition rates.

“Someone has to pay,” Powell said. “The more scholarships increase, the more tuition has to increase so that somebody is paying the revenue needed to operate.”

A limited amount of scholarships, such as athletic scholarships, can be adjusted every year because they are meant to apply to a specific percentage. Powell said Henderson will make rare adjustments in the upcoming school year to other academic scholarships, which usually award a specific dollar amount.

The cost of higher education continues to swell as institutions work to offer additional services required by regulations and those desired by their students. The Charles D. Dunn Student Recreation Center opened on the Arkadelphia campus in 2009 and was constructed as a result of student demand.

Powell said institutions have added more advising and tutoring services in the past 20 years to aid a growing student population, which includes more first-generation college students with less knowledge of higher education. The costs of health services also increased to provide students with additional counseling and mental health services.

“There are a lot of things we do today we did not necessarily do 20 years ago or we do a lot less of it,” Powell said. “The more you add that, there’s more tuition costs that go along with it.

“The challenge in that is the very students who struggle and we have to put those services in place for, now we are raising the costs and making it even harder for students who struggle to get through. It is a really difficult balance in what can we afford to provide to the students and then ask them to pay for.”

In-state enrollment averages about 80-90 percent of Henderson’s student population, but certain programs, such as graduate programs in education, draw more interest from students in neighboring states. Other programs, such as the Department of Aviation, are more regional in nature.

“We want to be an option for students who want to student aviation, but if they look at what our out-of-state rate was before, it looks unaffordable,” Powell said.

The board approved a decrease in tuition for out-of-state undergraduates from $443 per credit hour to $276. Tuition for out-of-state graduate students will decrease from $537 per credit hour to $336.

Most out-of-state students opt to live on campus. Henderson, like many universities, waives out-of-state tuition for students who live in university housing.

“The real cost was identical to the cost of an in-state student, but you do not know that unless you go through the process and figure all of that out,” Powell said. “It looks like it is not affordable until you figure out what the real arrangement is.”

Powell said the decreases are meant to make Henderson more attractive on the front end to out-of-state students.

“It does not have any impact on in-state students, because there is no revenue hit we are taking by lowering that tuition,” Powell said. “It’s not like we are asking in-state students what we used to get from out-of-state students. It does not have any impact at all, which is why we were able to leave the in-state rate basically the same and reduce the out-of-state.”

Powell said Henderson’s strategic plan emphasizes student success similarly to the state’s new outcomes-based model. The university’s six-year graduation rate is about average when compared to 60 other peer small, regional, master’s level universities throughout the country.

“If we do that well and retain and graduate students well, we do not have to worry what is in the outcomes-based model,” Powell said. “We are going to get funded because we have done what we are supposed to do.”

The new state model is designed to award funding to public colleges and universities based on student retention and degree attainment.

“That is not necessarily the goal of trying to get those things accomplished,” Powell said. “The real goal is if we enroll a student, we need to get them to a degree. That is why they came to Henderson.

“We are never going to get to 100 percent and we shouldn’t get to 100 percent, but we should be able to increase it. That is what is built into the strategic plan — to do better for our students, make sure more students have the opportunity to get to a degree.”

Powell said Henderson will continue to seek methods to manage the cost of attendance as the landscape of higher education continues to change.

“I do not know the answer to how do we keep costs from rising every year, but I am hoping we can figure it out,” Powell said.