Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Dramatic tuition rate hikes will force University of Texas at El Paso students to vote with their feet and transfer to New Mexico State University at Las Cruces, a border lawmaker has warned.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) has written to University of Texas System Chancellor Mark G. Yudof and system vice chair Woody Hunt, an El Paso businessman, to complain about UTEP imposing a 33 percent increase in tuition fees over the last 15 months.

Shapleigh said UTEP, which has the third poorest student population in the UT System, now charges $491 more per semester than NMSU for a student taking 15 credit hours. He said cuts in administrative costs, such as reducing the number of vice presidents, should be implemented before additional tuition increases. He has also asked the university to bring in outside auditors.

"We will vigorously oppose any tuition increases at UTEP," Shapleigh said. "I do not believe that it is in UTEP's or students best interests to hike tuition 33 percent in less than 15 months. We believe that there are many ways to guarantee UTEP excellence without tuition hikes that are third highest in the state."

Shapleigh said that unlike other UT components, UTEP faces stiff competition. NMSU, just 40 miles away, has better SAT scores, graduation rates, and national rankings than UTEP.

Shapleigh said that in 1996, when NMSU equalized tuition with UTEP, one in ten students left the UTEP campus. "As I like to remind regents, students have a choice too," Shapleigh said. "It is only a matter of time and tuition hikes before students vote with their feet and leave for a better deal."

Dr. Richard Padilla, vice president of student affairs at UTEP, acknowledges tuition rates have risen sharply but said the main reason was the failure of the Legislature to increase funding to the university during the last regular session.

"When we went into last session we had expected a large increase in funds. Instead, they cut us by $8.5 million," Padilla said. "At the very moment that we are growing and developing, our funding was cut. It could not have been at a worse time."

UTEP increased tuition fees by $18 per credit hour for the spring semester and $14 per credit hour for the fall semester. Padilla said the university was currently looking at a further five-percent increase, or $8 per credit hour, if the UT System agrees. That would bring a full-time 12-hour load to $1,999.

Despite those increases, Padilla said UTEP was competitive with other universities, including NMSU.

"I do not know where Senator Shapleigh gets his information that we lost lots of students to NMSU," Padilla said. "Do we have students that go to NMSU? Sure. But as far as tuition rates go, it's almost a race between snails. They go up a little; we go up a little. When you add housing and transportation, we believe we are very competitive."

Padilla said revenues created by tuition increases had helped UTEP increase class offerings, add faculty and develop new financial assistance plans for students. He said students had been kept informed of developments every step of the way through the staging of dozens of public forums.

Shapleigh said the tuition rate hikes were part of a larger picture involving the rise of regressive taxes as the mantra of the "Radical Right" and an emerging Hispanic majority in Texas. He said the middle class students suffered the most.