NORMAL—NIU tuition will increase at least 10 percent for the 1991-92 school year, Board of Regents members agree.

The Regents unanimously passed a resolution Thursday stating they must increase tuition, mainly to cover inflationary costs at the Regency universities that the state has overlooked. This translates to about $86 per student, but could increase if the Regency system does not receive adequate funds from the General Assembly.

However, the tuition hike will not be finalized until the Illinois Board of Higher Education reviews the budget in January and makes a recommendation. The Regents then consider the IBHE’s recommendation and sets tuition in April.

There was a 44 percent shortfall in funding because of inflation, said NIU President John La Tourette. It is because of the inflation gap that “tuition went up by 177 percent,” he said.

The tuition resolution will force the state to deal with funding explicitly upfront, La Tourette said.

“The legislature never realizes the impact they have on us (higher education),” he said.

The point of the tuition resolution is to get the decreased state funding “out in front” of the legislature, he added.

“If we lose one state dollar, it takes three or four tuition dollars to make it up.”

IBHE guidelines state tuition should be one-third the cost of instructional materials. “The legislature is looking at the one-third, not the other two-thirds,” La Tourette explained. “They’re not looking at the whole picture.”

Tuition makes up the shortfalls from the state.

“If the General Assembly had increased funding for higher education as much as inflation, we could’ve had the same budget as Fiscal Year 1989,” La Tourette said.

Because the General Assembly has not given higher education much support, “we have to raise tuition or cut programs to make up for the lack of funding,” La Tourette said.

Groves said, “The tuition resolution is based upon realities, real needs and state funding.” The burden of under-funding by the state needs to be shared by taxpayers and students, he said.

In hopes that the increase will be minimal and that the state will contribute its fair share, the Regents also passed a resolution telling the state that higher education is dismally underfunded.

NIU Student Regent James Mertes and Sylvia Nichols, chairman of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee, suggested an amendment to the resolution to insure the Regents “will, without reservation, approve a tuition increase in spring,” Mertes said.