UH to consider 5-year
By Gary T. Kubota
plan for raising tuition
Star-BulletinKAHULUI -- The University of Hawaii administration is talking about developing a five-year schedule of tuition increases for UH-Manoa, UH-West Oahu, community colleges and graduate schools.
University President Kenneth Mortimer said he favors "modest tuition increases" of under 5 percent a year.
Mortimer said the discussion yesterday before the University Board of Regents was intended to provide information for discussion. He said he will be making a formal tuition proposal at a later meeting.
Mortimer's administration is talking about holding public meetings about tuition sometime in January or February, with the regent taking action in February or March. The tuition increases would begin to take effect in the fall of 2000.
During a presentation yesterday, the administration talked about increasing the community college tuition for a full-time undergraduate student by 4 percent to 5 percent, or $24 a semester. The tuition for a semester is $516.
West Oahu Colleges tuition would increase by $36 a semester -- the tuition is $948 a semester -- and University of Hawaii-Manoa, between $48 to $60 a year. Tuition at Manoa is $1,512 a semester.
Colleen Sathre, university vice president for planning and policy, said one of the reasons for the tuition increase is to keep up with the inflationary factor for higher education, which averages about 3.2 percent a year nationally.
Sathre said a five-year plan would enable people to plan ahead in saving for college expenses and allow modest increases to prevent large tuition jumps.
"If you do no increase, you set yourself up for higher increases later on," Sathre said.
Students, interviewed after the meeting, said the increases would be financially difficult but they were also worried about the quality of education and the reduction in class offerings.
Five classes are scheduled to be cut from the curriculum in the humanities at Maui Community College.
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