The University of Hawaii long enjoyed a reputation for bargain-price resident tuition, but over the years, that advantage has withered. Especially since the recession, its share of dollars from the state’s general fund has shrunk while the costs assumed by students through their tuition payments has risen.
So the pressure should be on UH officials to sharpen their pencils and revise the university’s budget with an eye to minimizing the impact on the students, who have been bearing the brunt of economic shifts over the past several years.
The administration is crafting a proposal for the UH Board of Regents, a way to compensate for lawmakers’ decision during the 2015 session to cut $28 million from the budget request. The university now has more discretion over how to narrow the gap, given the move by the Legislature to enable "lump sum" budgeting for UH, leaving the spending details as an internal decision.
A five-year blueprint adopted in 2011 authorized UH administrators to bump up tuition by 7 percent annually, but more recent analysis has given them pause. Last fall the regents decided to change tuition policy by allowing reductions in tuition to be approved more quickly, at any public board meeting.
More affordable tuition had been the goal of that change, but the legislative cuts this session delivered too steep a challenge.
Still, Kalbert Young, UH chief financial officer, seems assured that tuition increases can be kept below the 7 percent rate at the Hilo and West Oahu campuses and the community colleges.
But at the flagship Manoa campus, where expenditure cuts totaling $18.6 million already are in the cards for the next year, $12.9 million more would have to be cut if Manoa doesn’t get the programmed 7 percent tuition hike, according to data Young will present to regents at their Tuesday meeting.
The goal of the coming weeks must be getting tuition increases down below that threshold. Costs have been trending in the wrong direction.
A year ago, the Hawai‘i Educational Policy Center at UH issued a paper that helped to change the conversation about overreliance on tuition revenues. Since 2008, the state’s general fund appropriations in support of the university have stood at more than a quarter below pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, tuition and fees were rising much faster than the national average.
This tends to depress enrollments, according to the policy paper, which quoted 2013 figures showing about 46 percent of public high school graduates not enrolling in any college program. Surely the rising price point for a UH education helped them make up their mind.
And needy students are getting less help from tuition revenue than they should. At UH-Manoa, according to the paper, only 19 percent of tuition is channeled back into grants, a much lower rate than at many state universities.
A 2013 College Board study yields a few points of comparison. For resident tuition in four-year institutions, the national average five-year increase was 21 percent; Hawaii’s was 47 percent. Nonresident tuition at four-year colleges rose over that period by an average of 19 percent, compared to 50 percent here.
There are two conclusions to draw. One is that the Legislature must seriously revisit its commitment of tax revenues to higher education.
Already saddled with college loan debt, Hawaii’s students and their families are not in the position to absorb more of college costs, and for many of them, UH is the only practical option.
Lawmakers should keep the investment in higher education at more appropriate funding levels than what’s in place now.
The other conclusion is that UH administrators must make sure that students get more value for their tuition dollar, not by cutting direct educational benefits but by reducing waste.
Before the regents approve tuition increases at any campus, they must be convinced that more of the money fills student needs, rather than continuing to pad UH administrative costs.
