State: Colleges feel pinch of tight budget

Even if Gov. Jeb Bush allows yet another sizable tuition increase -- the sixth in six years for Florida students -- university officials are bracing for their toughest budget year in at least a decade.

The University of South Florida is having to borrow from a trust fund to provide graduate students their financial packages.

University of Florida professors can forget the 10 percent pay raises they were promised. Even the most senior faculty will be getting increases of just 2.5 percent, or about half the increase given to state prison guards.

Florida State University has dropped its plans to keep its library open all night. State employees have lost the right to take university classes for free.

But officials say those measures are minor compared to the cuts that will occur if Bush vetoes the 7.5 percent tuition increase.

That decision would cost Florida universities $30-million.

"It would be very bad news," said Jack Wheat, a spokesman for USF President Judy Genshaft. USF's share of the shortfall would be at least $4-million.

"The universities would just have to find a way to do more with less," says Debi Gallay, the university system's budget chief. "But when you are taking in thousands of additional students, there is a point at which that becomes difficult."

Bush has not said whether he will veto the tuition increase, which he wanted held to 5 percent. Aides say he will announce his decision Friday.

Student leaders strongly oppose the increase, which would cost full-time undergraduates an additional $116 a year.

They know the argument in defense of the raise: that Florida's tuition rate is among the cheapest in the nation, that even after an increase, tuition will cover less than one-fourth of what it actually costs the state to educate a student.

The problem is students pay a lot more than just tuition to get a degree, said David Foy, executive director of the Florida Student Association.

"They have to pay fees, room and board and books, and all of them are going up in price," he said.

University fees, for example, have increased 26 percent since 1996, Foy said. Book costs have gone up about 30 percent.

But what makes this year's tuition increase particularly unpalatable, Foy said, is how the extra money would be spent.

In past years, a portion of the new tuition revenue was used to improve student programs and services. But this year's increase would be used primarily to pay for future enrollment.

"Students don't think they should have to pay more to ensure that high school juniors can get in," Foy said.

University administrators say the Legislature left them no choice.

For the first time since 1991-92, state lawmakers this year cut the annual appropriation to the university system. While the reduction is less than 1 percent -- or about $12-million out of a total outlay of $2.4-billion -- it comes at a time when the system is struggling to absorb an additional 5,500 students.

University presidents have told the governor a tuition veto on top of the budget cut could be a disaster.

The universities already are feeling the financial impact of the Republican plan to reorganize higher education. Each has to pay for the training and upkeep of a new board of trustees. Each is preparing to take over payroll, accounting and other functions now performed by the state Board of Regents.

Some administrators are pulling out heavy ammunition as they await Bush's decision.

FSU provost Larry Abele is warning that a tuition veto would hurt the school's efforts to maintain racial diversity.

Without the tuition money, Abele says, FSU would have to reduce freshmen enrollment by as much as one-third. He says that would require the university to stop accepting applications several weeks earlier, which would have a disproportionate impact on African-Americans. He said that black applicants applied later in the process this year, as they have in past years.

Any decline in black enrollment would be bad news for Bush, who is gearing up for a run at re-election. He promised last year that his ban on racial preferences in university admissions would not hurt campus diversity.

The impact of this year's tight budget is not affecting all universities equally. Some received additional funding in targeted areas.

USF, for example, got $4.4-million to expand enrollment and programs at its regional campuses. FSU received $15-million to operate its new medical school, and Florida A&M University got $2.5-million for its new law school in Orlando.

That is little comfort to professors at UF, which did not receive enough money to reward senior faculty with promised raises intended to nudge their salaries closer to national averages.

"It was demoralizing," said Dr. Richard Briggs, a radiology professor and chairman of UF's Faculty Senate. "We keep hearing language from Tallahassee about how education is a priority, but all we ever seem to get are words."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk