SEMO FEE HIKES LIKELY; REGENTS WILL DECIDE ON MONDAY

Angie Haas has coped with ever-increasing fees at Southeast Missouri State University that will soon approach nearly $100 a credit hour for in-state undergraduate students.

Haas, a senior, is glad she will be graduating this spring -- particularly since fees are expected to climb again next fall.

The Board of Regents will consider raising tuition and general fees when it meets Monday.

The university's budget committee and the school administration are recommending an increase of $4 a credit hour in tuition and general fees for in-state students and $7 a credit hour for out-of-state students.

The cost to in-state students would be $96 a credit hour for undergraduates and $102 a credit hour for graduate students. The cost to out-of-state students would be $173 a credit hour for undergraduates and $184 a credit hour for graduate students.

"Every year it keeps going up and up and up," said Haas.

Haas chose to attend her hometown school. But she said the annual fee hikes will prompt more Cape Girardeau residents to go away to college.

Some of Haas' friends are taking 18 credit hours of classes a semester. At $96 a credit hour, those students would pay $1,728 in the fall semester.

Haas said students increasingly question if they are getting their money's worth at Southeast.

Dr. Ken Dobbins, the school's executive vice president, said the university has worked to keep fee hikes to a minimum.

The school has proposed increasing incidental fees or tuition by more than 3 percent, but that still is only slightly above the increase in the Consumer Price Index, Dobbins said.

In-state graduate and undergraduate students would pay $2.80 more a credit hour; out-of-state students $5.80 more a credit hour.

The added revenue would be used to fund programs and projects outlined in the school's new strategic plan and pay raises for employees.

Dobbins said the university would have needed even higher tuition if it weren't for higher enrollment and a healthy level of state funding.

A general student fee would increase to $5.70 a credit hour, a jump of $1.20 over the current rate. The increase includes a new $1-per-credit-hour computer fee and a 20-cent hike in the athletic fee.

Southeast spends $122,000 annually to operate and maintain its computer labs. The new computer fee would generate an estimated $187,000, Dobbins said.

Coupled with the money already budgeted, Southeast then would allocate more than $300,000 annually to computer labs for its students.

Over the next year, the university plans to triple the number of computer work stations for students, from 68 to 205.

The hike in the athletic fee would have students paying 83 cents a credit hour to help fund the school's sports teams.

The fee hike would raise an additional $37,000. Even with the increase, the fee would generate only about $150,000 or a very small amount of the school's $3.5 million athletics budget, Dobbins said.

Some of the added revenue would pay for drivers to transport sports teams to away games.

Student Government leaders served on the budget committee and backed the proposed fee increases, Dobbins said.

Even with the fee hikes, the cost of attending Southeast remains competitive with other schools, he said.

The University of Missouri system, for example, will boost tuition and student fees for a fifth straight year.