Tennessee Board of Regents announces

The Tennessee Board of Regents voted on June 18 to approve tuition increases that will result in additional revenue of 7.1 percent at the University of Austin Peay, East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee and Tennessee state universities and Tennessee Technological University), an average of 5.5 percent at the state's community colleges, and 5.5 percent at technology centers. Except at the technology centers, where the increase across-the-board, these are tuition revenue increases, not tuition increases.

The amount any given student's tuition will increase depends on how many hours the student takes, since TBR is beginning this fall to charge for each hour taken with no cap. In the past, TBR has capped tuition at 12 hours; additional hours were free.

However, hours above 12 will be steeply discounted this year, with only a $10-per-hour additional charge. Students taking less than 12 hours are the beneficiaries of the change in tuition policy under which TBR universities and community colleges now charge for each hour taken. For those students, tuition will go up only 1.06 percent at the state universities, 2.8 percent at the community colleges, and 5.24 percent at the University of Memphis.

If the board had approved an across-the-board tuition increase, all students at state universities would have faced about a 6 percent increase, at the University of Memphis 7 percent, and at community colleges, 5.5 percent. Under the old system of charging for tuition, part-time students paid about 30 percent, or $6,000, more for a university degree than full-time students. At community colleges, part-time students paid about 27 percent more.

The Tennessee Board of Regents believes that in order to fill Tennessee's need for a better educated population, it is important to encourage people who cannot go full time to pursue higher education nevertheless. The inequity in the cost of a degree for part-time students has been a disincentive for attendance.