UA Tuition: A disturbing trend put into perspective

With all the recent talk out in cyberspace about tuition hikes—what they mean for the University of Arizona, examining what is supposed to be an “as free-as-possible” education, what the future will bring, sticker shock, etc.—the WatchCat News-Journal wants to get in on the action.

While it is not exactly an epiphany to state that continuous tuition hikes are disturbing and possibly excessive, connecting dots with what tuition hikes have meant historically may go a long way to putting things into perspective, showing just how outrageous some of these numbers have become and how they are connected to other aspects of university policy.

To do our part, we’ve spent quite some time digging around news reports, UA documents and the trusty ol’ UA Fact Books to bring you a good, hard numbers salad to go with your outrageous tuition beefsteak.

First off, consider this. We looked through two distinct periods of time in the recent UA past—the four years before UA President Robert Shelton took office, and the four years after. It is only fair and right, considering the amount he is skewered (sometimes rightfully so, other times not) around campus for tuition and cost problems. Here are some things that stood out:

• The planned 35 percent increase in tuition over the next two years will be the largest since 2003-04, when tuition rose 38 percent in a single year.
• While the full-time student population went up each of the four years prior to Shelton’s arrival, it has gone down almost each year since.
• About the same number of full-time students currently attend the UA as in 2002, while in that same span, tuition has gone up 162 percent.
• During the four years prior to Shelton’s arrival, the full-time student population rose about 3 percent, while tuition rose 73 percent.
• Since Shelton became the UA’s president, the full-time student population is about the same as when he entered office, while tuition has risen 42 percent.
• Fall 2002 – The UA had just over 30,000 full-time students bringing in about $169 million in tuition dollars.
• Fall 2009 – The UA had just over 30,000 full-time students bringing in $356 million in tuition dollars.
• Cost of tuition in 2002: In-state – $2,600; Out-of-state – $11,113
• Cost of tuition in 2009: In-state – $6,800; Out-of-state – $22,000
• Since 2002, the amount of money brought into the university directly via tuition dollars decreased from the previous year only once—during the 2007-08 school year: Amount of money brought in from tuition dollars in 2006-07 – $247 million; in 2007-08 – $243 million; in 2008-09 – $288 million.
• It’s interesting to note that the start of the UA Transformation (Fall 2008) also marked the start of a 21 percent increase in tuition.

If you skipped over a few of those bullet-points, please go back and read all of them, as they are collectively astounding, although not entirely shocking. The drastic increase of tuition is a trend that reaches much further back than Shelton’s days, and it will only get worse, as we can soon expect to pay $9,200 for in-state tuition and around $30,000 for out-of-state tuition.

For your piece of mind, and for your own browsing joy, here are some charts. Take notice of the relationship between student population and tuition increase (or lack thereof):