Texas A&M University President Bowen Loftin was asked at this week’s Faculty Senate meeting about his recommendations regarding next year’s tuition and fee rates.
Earlier this year, an advisory committee recommended a tuition increase. Loftin told the Faculty Senate his recommendation to the regents to freeze general tuition followed meetings with nine of the board’s ten members.
Loftin says between mid-February and the end of April, “things evolved” and “it became pretty clear to me in the communications I had from a variety of players that the potential of a tuition increase being approved by Texas A&M’s Board of Regents was not likely.”
Bowen Loftin answers a question about freezing tuition instead of an increase.
Loftin took questions about the new student success fee, which will be funded by transfers from other accounts. Addressing the premise that some established fees are too high because transfers will be made, Loftin says “to say that a fee reduction reflects too high a fee a is very simplistic and very naive in my opinion. When you have that kind of a reduction in state support and you want to run a university in a fairly equitable way, you have to make hard choices. I would never argue that some fees are too high. It is simply that the prioritization associated where a fee goes may not be as high as it will be elsewhere.”
Bowen Loftin answers a question about the student success fee.
The regents approved Loftin’s recommendations on a 6-3 vote.