February 18, 2010
February 18, 2010
UConn trustees approve tuition hike, but trim administration's request
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Send to friendBy Robert A. Frahm
University of Connecticut undergraduates will face a 5.4 percent increase in tuition and fees next fall, university trustees decided Thursday after hearing a mixed message from students and faculty.
The $530 increase, which brings total tuition and fees to $10,416, is slightly less than the 5.8 percent hike UConn officials had proposed a week ago.
The board also said it is seeking a consultant to conduct a financial review in an effort to hold down costs in the face of the state's budget crisis. State support for Connecticut's flagship university has remained flat, putting pressure on the university to raise tuition sharply. Officials have warned that even with a similar tuition increase next year, UConn could face a $20 million to $40 million deficit.
"We must find structural changes not only to reduce the growth of costs . . . but we must reduce costs in absolute terms as well," said Peter S. Drotch, chairman of the trustees' Financial Affairs Committee.
Some students asked the board to hold tuition increases to a minimum while others called for larger increases in order to preserve programs and avoid cuts in academic and other programs.
"The stories are very compelling," Drotch said. "The range of views of students is no different than the range of views of trustees."
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The way that UConn dept heads and professors spend the taxpayers' money is obscene. I worked at UC Storrs and several of my friends who worked there marvel at the huge waste we saw. The budgets are set up so that "if you don't spend it - you "lose" it" - and the dept heads spend every last cent they are budgeted on crap just so they will get the same amount or more next year. I saw excessive computer purchases, staff parties, moving of offices (with re-wiring and purchasing of new furniture - MONTHLY) just so that money could be spent. $2,000 to rewire a professor's office so that he can keep a refrigerator in it??? An older woman that I know who retired from there after a long career said that the old system was for UConn to be controlled from the state offices in Hartford and it was efficient then - but a change in the '80's to having the Storrs Dept heads handle their own budgets meant total chaos, and the creation of a 100 little tyrants. UConn has been the golden cow of CT for too long - so they have a few sports teams - that doesn't come near to justifying the wasteful spending of the academic depts. There, I said it.