Tuition to rise starting this fall

The faculty and staff of George Mason University gathered Wednesday in the Johnson Center Cinema to hear Senior Vice President Maurice Scherrens and Provost Peter Stearns give an update on the university’s budget.

With very few students in attendance, faculty and staff members filled the cinema hoping to hear about potential salary increases and an updates on tuition increases.

On the minds of many students is the increase in tuition rates.

“If blood, sweat, and tears could be put on pages we would have put them there, but we can’t…we tried extremely hard to not increase tuition rates,” said Scherrens.

Originally, the Virginia state legislature wanted to create a tuition increase of about 20 percent. However, through negotiations Mason was able to agree to a lower increase between seven and eight percent.

“We don’t like to raise tuition, but it’s what we had to do” said Chief Budget Officer Guilbert L. Brown.

The tuition increase would mean in-state tuition rates would go from $8,684 to $9,376. For out-of-state students, the increase would go from $25,448 to $26,975, a six percent increase.

Retirement funds were another focus at the forum. While the salaries of faculty will be increased by five percent, they will also see a five percent payment increase into the Virginia Retirement System, taken from their salary. While faculty will see an increase in their salaries on paper, they will take in less take-home pay. Scherrens said the university was not trying to trivialize the decrease in the take-home pay, but merely wanted to be “transparent.”

Scherrens stressed that Mason continues in its commitment to growth, and has been able to do so with the retention rate of rising sophomores. Without the growth and high retention rates, the university would have a difficult time requesting money from the state.

Following the presentation there was a question and answer session. Faculty members asked how they could inform their students about the changes in tuition. Provost Stearns suggested telling students about the student forums, which has been done in the past in order to inform students on the budget.

Even if Mason raises tuition, it will continue to have one of the lowest tuition rates for both in and out-of-state students, next to James Madison University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

The complete forum can be found here, which includes previous presentations and the complete 2011-2012 Fiscal Year budget.