University of Missouri curators have voted to increase tuition by 3 percent for Missouri residents starting this summer. Out of state students will see a tuition increase of 7.5 percent. By Bryan Whitton (Columbia, Mo.)
This decision comes on the heels of Governor Jay Nixon pressuring the University of Missouri System’s curators to limit how much they raise tuition. The UM System estimates a 47.1 million dollar budget shortfall despite the hikes. It is expected that upwards of 200 jobs may be lost between the four Missouri campuses, but Chancellor Brady Deaton did not express much concern about it affecting MU’s faculty.
“That’s a system-wide figure, here at Missouri I think we talked about maybe 50, 55 jobs something in that range, but those mostly will be positions that we’ll simply not fill, and then there’s enough momentum and turnover that we’re hopeful that there’ll not be any lost jobs,” Deaton said.
This tuition increase follows a trend in the University of Missouri system. Over the past 5 years, Missouri’s tuition has increased by 14.3 percent, lower than in any neighboring state. The Board of Curators has said making education more affordable is very important to them, a view expressed by University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe at a meet and greet session held at Memorial Union Monday afternoon.
“Well the priority is number one student success, like I said earlier the quality of the education and making sure that we continue to invest in our students, our research, economic development, service activities so we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing historically,” Wolfe said.
Governor Jay Nixon also announced last week that he will be reducing his proposed budget cuts by putting 40 million dollars from a settlement with mortgage lenders toward higher education funding.
