ARIZONA (By Judd Slivka, Arizona Republic) February 14, 2007 — Increases of public university tuitions are painful for the people who pay them, but beneficial for the universities. And this year, as in the past, the universities will most likely get what they want.

In a time of dwindling state budgets and expanding student enrollment, all three state universities need that money to pay the bills.

But for someone like Saif Al-Alawi, student body president at Arizona State University West in Phoenix, that increase will hit hard.

A tuition increase means al-Alawi, a Deer Valley High School graduate who receives $1,500 in federal grants, has to dig further into student loans.

Parents and students around the state will groan today when this year's tuition proposals will be released. They won't be subtle, probably running 8 to 10 percent above this year's in-state undergraduate total of about $4,000 when tuition and mandatory fees are calculated together. In all probability, it will mean a 70 percent tuition increase since 2002-03.

"I met with (ASU President) Michael Crow and told him, 'It doesn't matter if we object or if we don't want the tuition increase,' " al-Alawi said. "You're going to do what you want to do."

Public university tuitions across the country are rising as state legislatures, confronted with competing needs, go after higher education budgets. Arizona is not alone in that, though the state's universities have never been fully funded, even under the Legislature's own formula.

The flipside to the tuition increases is this: Tuition helps make up the shortfall in state funding.

The universities are underfunded by the Legislature and tuition makes up, on the average, about 20 percent of the university system budget. The money the universities get goes toward several things: financial aid, debt service for buildings, hiring teachers for freshman English and math classes.

Under the Legislature's formula, the universities are supposed to receive money for one full-time employee for every 22 full-time students. But for most of the years during the past half-century, they didn't get that much money.

Add in ASU's rampant growth and other large expenses such as capital maintenance (also not funded fully by the Legislature) and the universities have found themselves robbing one account to satisfy another.

The money follows a complicated path from your pocket. It goes to the university, which is allowed to deduct a percentage for its own use (ASU, for example, was able to retain about 30 percent of its tuition revenues last year). The remainder of the money goes to the state's General Fund, where it sits until it gets returned to the universities as a portion of their operating funds from the state.

The operating funds pay faculty salaries, maintenance, travel and academic support. But the universities will often use the money they retain locally to buttress the state funding.

ASU, for instance, will use $2.6 million of the tuition it will collect this year to hire more instructors in introductory English and math classes.

The university also will use $5.8 million to pay tuition for graduate students who are teaching or researching for the university.

The University of Arizona will hold back $4 million for graduate tuition waivers.

Northern Arizona University earmarked about $1 million of the tuition money it received last year to increase faculty salaries and spent another $700,000 of its tuition money to help increase the university's enrollment by making more contacts with students.

At NAU, $250,000 of tuition money was set aside for student activities so all students could attend athletic events free.

Sometimes the money is just used for doing business.

UA, for instance, budgets about $1.4 million of tuition money to pay banks the fees they charge for accepting credit cards.

And all three universities use tuition money to pay for the debt they incur putting up academic buildings, such as the $58.7 million Lattie F. Coor Hall at Arizona State University.

At least in that way, with rooms full of new computers and cutting-edge presentation and teaching tools, a student's tuition dollars can come back to them.

"I'm a programming major and have an old computer at home," said Ryan Trybus of Scottsdale. "I need to use the newer equipment, so I come to the Coor building every day. What I like are how new the computers are and how many of them there are; I can always find one."