A newly formed student committee submitted recommendations to decrease tuition and increase the quality of UT’s liberal arts education to the college’s dean on Wednesday.

The College Tuition and Budget Advisory Committee for liberal arts compiled information from a survey of more than 400 liberal arts students and urged the college to improve faculty, career services and advising and guarantee smaller classes. According to the recommendations, 65 percent of students are against any kind of increase in tuition, but if a hike is unavoidable, the money should first go toward the resources students feel the most strongly about.

Once approved by the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the committee’s suggestions must be approved by Tuition Policy Advisory Committee. TPAC is a nine-member committee made up of four UT students and five faculty and staff members, including vice provost Steve Leslie and chief financial officer Kevin Hegarty. If TPAC approves the recommendations, they will be reviewed by President William Powers Jr. before going to the Board of Regents, which ultimately sets tuition.

The college will implement CTBAC’s recommendations, which also include funding a summer enrollment program for incoming freshmen and hiring more lecturers for courses that might delay a student’s graduation time, said Randy Diehl, the College of Liberal Art’s dean.

“It’s been key to have [CTBAC] involved in the discussion early on,” he said. “They’ve provided thoughtful and well-organized recommendations.”

The college plans to accept the committee’s recommendations with the addition of extending increased support for study abroad programs in the college, Diehl said.

The letter of recommendation coincided with TPAC’s first open forum, as the Committee has traditionally held closed meetings. The $92 million state cut for UT’s budget over two years will not be made up by tuition increases, Leslie said at the forum.

“We will try to cover the necessary costs to keep the University strong,” he said.

TPAC members will state their official opinion on the Liberal Arts CTBAC’s recommendations on Friday, after reviewing the committee’s letter to Diehl, said Carisa Nietsche, president of the Senate of College Councils and a TPAC member.

“In terms of personal thoughts, I was really impressed with their recommendations,” she said. “They did a really fine job of combining student opinion from the survey with what’s most feasible.”

Although ideally tuition would not go up, the college’s CTBAC took into account a tuition hike may be necessary and stated what they wanted to focus on should there be an increas, Nietsche said.

“It’s a nice balance, saying we recognize we aren’t the only college involved so we might not get what we want, but here are our priorities should tuition raise,” she said.

Printed on Thursday, October 13, 2011 as: Students offer input about tuition changes: Liberal arts college survey finds support for allocating funds to student resources