University faces tough sell on budget request

DULUTH - The University of Minnesota Board of Regents unanimously approved a state budget request Friday that would increase tuition 9 percent for most students by 2011 and increase faculty and staff pay 6 percent over the same period.

U President Robert Bruininks acknowledged that the request may be a tough sell when the Legislature convenes in January, given the troubled economy and a state budget deficit projected to be at least $2 billion.

 But he added that the 2010-2011 Biennial Budget Request, which asks the Legislature to add $141 million to the nearly $1.5 billion it currently gives to the university for two years, is necessary to keep the university attracting top-notch faculty and research grants critical to the state's economy.

Bruininks said the request for an additional $30 million to enhance research capacity and $95 million for salary and benefits increases reflect the university's conviction to stay strong when the state may need it most as a brain trust, economic engine and source of innovations in areas such as medicine and energy technology.

"This is a time to be tough-minded about Minnesota's future and not be timid," Bruininks told the board.

Several regents said the proposals represent a good plan, but they acknowledged it's a bad time to ask students and taxpayers to foot a bigger bill.

In recognition that the cost of a University of Minnesota degree -- currently about $40,000, not counting living expenses -- is spiraling out of reach of many, the proposal approved Friday includes $16 million to expand a tuition-relief program that essentially slows tuition increases for families making between $50,000 and $100,000 per year. Bruininks said the program is projected to cancel next year's tuition increase for up to 9,000 students -- 30 percent of the system's undergraduates.

Banks 'own' degrees

Still, most students won't qualify. Some, who have seen tuition increase an average of 8 percent a year for the past five years, said Friday that the increases would only add to increasingly dismal prospects of getting out from under crushing college debt while still young. Adding to the pessimism is that, until the economy improves, good jobs may be difficult to find.

"When we graduate, we do not own our degrees -- Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, TCF and the federal government own them," senior English major Dustin Norman from the Twin Cities campus told regents, who met in Duluth as part of a rotation that takes them to various campuses. "We will not own our degrees until we are 45 years old."

Norman, 22, a student representative to the board, said he will graduate in May with $20,000 to $30,000 in loans, and he said it would be double that if his parents hadn't paid for his first two years.

"It definitely becomes real once you graduate," Norman said. "It alters the type of job you look for. You look for salary instead of what your passion is."

Tuition now is about $10,000 per year for undergraduate state residents, up from $400 in 1970. Adjusted for inflation, that $400 would equal about $2,217 today. In 1990, tuition was $2,232, equal to $3,830 today. Officials say the increases have outpaced inflation so astronomically because the state reduced its share of university funding. The university's annual budget is about $3 billion.

Bruininks said the request will be formally presented to legislative leaders in the next two months, although some leaders already have been briefed. One of them, state Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, said the proposal will face an uphill battle as the Legislature tries to make ends meet.

Parents worry, too

"I'm nervous about this whole session -- that we'll have to be in this cut, cut mode again," said Rukavina, chairman of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Policy and Finance Division Committee.

He said he likes the tuition relief in the proposal and agrees with Bruininks that higher education is important during tough times, when the unemployed go back to school. But he added that "some people at the Capitol'' grumble that the university has gotten "too flashy" in using large amounts of bonding money in recent years for research facilities and stadiums and may have forgotten that the primary mission of a land-grant university is to teach students.

Unfortunately, said Rukavina, "the less we give them in the Legislature, the more they're going to nick the students, and they can't afford that, either. I've talked to students who say they'll never be able to pay back their debt."

Parents of students also are nervous about increasing costs. Norman's mother, Marissa Norman, of Ham Lake, said her son is talking about going to graduate school, which would add to his debt. She said that now that the college money they saved is gone, she and her husband, Michael, have had to come up with other ideas to help.

"I've been stressing that he should move back home to offset some of those costs," she said. "If you don't have a spare hundred grand lying around, you have to do something."

Staff writer Mike Meyers contributed to this report. Larry Oakes • 1-218-727-7344