State senator warns IU to scrap tuition hike

INDIANAPOLIS ­– A state lawmaker is threatening to remove construction funding from IU if school officials fail to reduce or eliminate the tuition increases approved by the IU Board of Trustees last month.

Sen. Luke Kenley, the chairman of the State Budget Committee, last month chastised IU and Purdue for increasing tuition this year by 4.6 percent and 5 percent
respectively, despite the recession. He asked the schools to reconsider the increases.

But Kenley, unsatisfied with their responses, has removed consideration of about $53 million in school projects from the agenda for Friday’s State Budget Committee meeting.

Kenley, R-Noblesville, said withholding project approval is “the only leverage I have.”

“We want IU and Purdue to be outstanding universities, but they need to be realistic,” he said. “I don’t think we need to see increases like this in the middle of a recession.”

The projects in question range from $1.5 million in track and field work at IU to construction of a $23.5 million laboratory that would test alternative fuels at Purdue.

University officials have balked at reducing tuition, citing their rank among peers, but say talks with Kenley continue. They adamantly oppose any construction delays.

Most of the projects are privately funded, but state law requires that all university building projects be approved by the Budget Committee.

As committee chairman, Kenley has control of what projects are considered.

“If Senator Kenley withholds approval of these projects, it could be quite problematic for us, because some of them are time-sensitive, and work on some of them already has been bid, and those bids could expire,” said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre.

If Kenley is able to push the universities into reducing tuition, little could be done for the fall semester, as bills have been sent out.

But Kenley said tuition changes could be applied retroactively to students’ accounts or credited toward the spring semester.

“I don’t think they are considering affordability and cost as much as they are what the market will allow them to charge,” he said of the schools. “I don’t see any effort being
made to make these universities more affordable.”

Kenley has said that tuition increases at the state’s other public universities are justified. For example, Ball State University raised tuition 4.4 percent, but much of that was the result of a student-approved referendum to build a new recreation center.

Kenley concludes, however, that IU and Purdue could keep in-state tuition flat this year and still increase their overall budgets from revenue received from out-of-state students.

Both schools did increase out-of-state tuition more than in-state for this year.

School officials insist the in-state increases were necessary to keep up with a jump in utilities and health care costs and to boost financial aid, among other expenses.