Over the $10,000 Barrier, Into the Blue

Last year at about this time, nnance officials and other administrators began to hint that undergraduate tuition would jump more than 10 per cent for the current academic year--a frightening prospect cushioned only by the hope that the sharp rise was exceptional.

But the same financial officials snuffed out that hope this week when they announced that tuition for 1981-82 will most likely include a 10-to 15-per-cent increase over this year's $9170 figure, far surpassing the $10,000 barrier.

Melissa D. Gerrity, assistant dean of the Faculty for financial affairs, said this week that despite efforts to work around inflation and tighten the budgetary belt, the University still needs to enlarge its income stream with a tuition hike.

"I hope we can keep it under 15 percent," Gerrity said.

Gerrity and two other administrators explained some of the reasons necessitating sharp tuition increases during University budget reports presented to the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) last Monday.

Benjamin N. Walcott, assistant director of Food Services, told CHUL that even though his department's budget for the 1979-80 academic year included an extra $171,727 to make up for past losses, Food Services still ran a small deficit and is now almost $123,000 in the red.

Fear of another deficit and the increased cost of providing funds for meals at Hillel, equipment and other expenses prompted Food Services to ask budget officials for a "substantial board increase" for the 1981-82 school year, a Food Services report states.

That increase will also help Department 91, a financial category which covers the costs of the House system and freshman dormitories. Martha G. Coburn, associate dean of the College, said at the CHUL meeting that rapidly escalating energy costs forced Department officials to include a $300,000-plus deficit in their fiscal 1981 budget--a deficit that may climb as high as $650,000 by next June if inflation rates stay high.

Department 91 received more than 90 per cent of its income from student room rent and facilities last year, Coburn said, implying that those tuition components may have to finance the department's future deficits.

And these departmental hardships combined with a projected Faculty budget deficit of $785,000 for the current year foreshadow future double-digit tuition hikes. "Unfortunately, I don't see too many positives on the horizon," Gerrity said.