GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM A smattering of University of Hawaii undergraduates made their between-semester moves at the Hale Noelani dormitory on Friday afternoon. Many residents had already been in place since the previous fall semester.

UH dorm fees to rise

Manoa officials seek to raise housing fees by up to 5 percent a year to fix aging facilities

THE University of Hawaii at Manoa is seeking to raise housing fees by up to 20 percent over the next four years to fix its aging dormitories and cover increased salaries and other costs.

The dorm fee increase comes as the university is in the second year of a tuition increase that will raise the price of taking classes at UH-Manoa by 140 percent over six years.

If the full housing increase is granted, a current Hawaii high school freshman will pay $12,133 per year, not including books and other fees, to attend UH-Manoa and live in a shared dorm room in fall 2010.

"That's a lot," said Katie Cooney, a freshman, who was on her way to buy $300 worth of books for the new semester. "I'd rather pay what it is right now than pay for fancy curtains."

But Andrew Bailey, a junior, said the prices are still cheaper than rent off campus.

Bailey said he would support a fee increase if the money goes to fixing the dorms.

"If the price increase is actually going to pay for something to be done, then I think it's worth it," Bailey said.

Francisco Hernandez, vice chancellor of students for UH-Manoa, said the university will be asking the Board of Regents on Thursday to give Manoa Chancellor Denise Konan the authority to increase fees up to 5 percent a year.

A 5 percent annual increase would mean dorm prices for the most common shared room -- now at $3,742 per nine-month school year -- would go up by $187 next year. Rates would rise $807 to $4,549 per academic year by 2010.

The new Frear Hall dorm, scheduled to open in fall 2008, would charge $5,057 for a shared bedroom up to $8,500 for a single-occupancy, one-bedroom apartment, rising to $5,576 and $9,372 respectively in 2010.

The prices for Frear are higher than estimates presented to the Board of Regents at a meeting last January. At that time, American Campus Communities, the private company developing the new facility, told regents it was looking to charge between $4,250 and $6,990 per academic year to keep prices affordable for students.

UH-Manoa undergraduate student President Grant Teichman said students want to see the old dorms fixed, but also want assurances that any dorm price increase will actually be used to improve the dorms and not wasted because of mismanagement.

"I don't have a lot of confidence that the money is going to be spent correctly," Teichman said. "Management is in such turmoil down there, I don't know how that money is not going to disappear."

State auditor Marion Higa is finishing an audit of the UH-Manoa student housing office that will be released this month.

Lawmakers called for the audit after allegations of lax management and embezzlement by resident advisers surfaced during a hearing on student housing problems last year.

"I don't know that the auditor's report is going to say money was wasted," said Hernandez, who has been briefed on the audit but has not seen the draft report yet.

Last month, UH-Manoa issued $100 million in bonds, which will be repaid through housing fees.

Some $46 million will be used for the new Frear Hall. The university also plans to spend $8 million to expand the dining hall at Gateway House to accommodate additional students. Another $2 million will go for housing at UH-Hilo.

The remaining $44 million will be used for other housing repairs and renovations, said Howard Todo, chief financial officer for the UH system.

Dennis Jones, president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and a consultant to UH-Manoa, said the fee increases at UH-Manoa are not out of line with increases at other universities.

"I don't know any place that is not raising housing and dining fees by some amount in the range that you are talking about," Jones said.

Hernandez said: "There's always concern about increasing costs. But we mitigate that concern by offering increased financial aid."

The last round of housing-fee increases at UH-Manoa ended in 2006. But student housing officials started working on a fee increase too late last year to have it take effect in the fall of 2006.

Instead, the housing office began charging students for use of the dorm during winter and spring break -- an increase of about 6.3 percent or $227 a year for the most common dorm room. Because the rate was the same, the housing office said it did not need approval from the regents.