The money collected from the rise in student tuition for the upcoming 2012-13 academic year will be used to provide more services for students and uphold facilities at Syracuse University, officials said.

The tuition will rise by 3.6 percent, equivalent to $1,307, according to the Committee on Budget and Fiscal Affairs’ annual budget report to the University Senate on Feb. 15.

‘The cost of running a university, like everything else in life, has increased,’ said Martha Garcia-Murillo, chairwoman of USen’s Budget Committee.

The increase in tuition will be positive for students, Garcia-Murillo said, because it is a smaller tuition increase for the university and nationally for private universities.

The tuition and fees at private colleges and universities had increased by about 4.5 percent in 2011, according to a report published on the College Board’s website.

The increase in tuition will help provide a number of services to students, Garcia-Murillo said. For example, the university is moving to a more digital use of library materials, so students can access the resources anywhere in the world. It will also be put toward maintaining facilities such as classrooms and keeping the same number of students in classes, Garcia-Murillo said.

‘I don’t think the increase in tuition will have much impact on students with financial aid,’ Garcia-Murillo said.

Kaye DeVesty, SU’s director of financial aid, agreed and said despite the increase the university provides many financial opportunities for students. Specifically, the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs encourages all students to apply for financial aid every year, DeVesty said, due to SU having a strong grant program and numerous outside scholarship opportunities available.

‘Our financial literacy program, ‘I Otto Know this!’ is almost two years old, and we make every effort to reach out to students who would like some financial advice,’ DeVesty said. ‘We can talk to students about spending their limited funds wisely or how to control credit card use and setting up an overall budget.’

Despite the 3.6 percent increase in tuition, the university’s rate decreased from the previous academic year rate of 3.8 percent, Garcia-Murillo said. She added that the university had to make ‘some tough decisions’ for the rate to drop.

The university made the decision to reduce retirement and health care benefits for faculty. The cost of health insurance increased so dramatically in the past couple of years that the university was unable to cover every faculty member, Garcia-Murillo said.

Other factors that affect the tuition increase include the size of the incoming freshman class, distributing money to different areas of the budget effectively, the economic crisis and the chancellor’s mission to make college affordable, Garcia-Murillo said.

Chancellor Nancy Cantor has a goal for SU’s tuition increase rate to be 3 percent in the next few years, Garcia-Murillo said.

‘From what I have seen so far, the chancellor has had a very strong desire to make college affordable and accessible to a lot of people,’ Garcia-Murillo said. ‘The national student debt crisis is always a concern for the university because they want to make sure that the students don’t leave with debt.’

There are many challenges when achieving this goal, Garcia-Murillo said. She said because the costs of both health care and technology continue to increase, the university will have to be very strategic in how the overall budget is managed and where, in certain areas, the reduction of operations will be.

Said Garcia-Murillo: ‘There’s a lot of creativity that the university will have to engage in to try to generate revenue that will help us cover the costs of services the university provides.’

mhnewman@syr.edu 

Published on February 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meredith: mhnewman@syr.edu | @MerNewman93