Dorm room rate hikes OK'd
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Undergraduate students at the University of Arizona who want to live in campus housing next year will pay about 9 percent more than students living on campus this year.
The Arizona Board of Regents on Friday unanimously approved UA's proposed housing rate increases for the 2008-09 school year, along with an average increase of slightly more than 5 percent for Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University.
UA's approved proposal will increase undergraduate housing from $375 to $549 per year. ASU's increase will range from $40 to $430 annually and NAU's from $184 to $224 annually.
Rates at all three universities vary depending on type of residence hall - traditional, suite or apartment-style - and the number of people per bedroom. Current yearly rates for undergraduate dorms at UA range from $4,149 to $4,966. ASU's housing ranges from $4,020 to $5,970 and NAU's range is $3,256 to $3,624.
The UA Residence Hall Association requested a $40 fee be added to the undergraduate rates to support cultural, educational and social programming in the dorms. It was approved.
Melissa M. Vito, UA's vice president for student affairs, said UA's rate is higher because 5 percent of the increase is for debt service needed to fund the three Sixth Street dorms approved by the board last year and forwarded to project implementation status in January. The dorms will include six buildings when completed.
"Our process is highly interactive with students," Vito said. "We use a model between completely market-driven and completely subsidized. We try to acknowledge a difference of perceived amenities (between housing units) but don't fully pass those on to students. If we were fully market-driven, the difference between dorm prices would be several thousand dollars."
She said that UA's rates were about in the middle of the Pacific-10 Conference universities and that students were supportive of paying for debt service for new dorms, a contention confirmed by Regent David Martinez, a UA student who sat on the housing-rate committee.
UA's plan was the only one approved unanimously, in part because a mandatory meal plan was not attached to it. UA has an a la carte meal plan that is not required but allows students to save sales tax if they opt in on a pay-as-you-go process. In contrast, both NAU and ASU have mandatory meal plans for freshmen, which student Regent Mary Venezia called "mandatory fees" and registered her protest by voting against ASU's proposal.
Additionally, NAU proposed a two-year guaranteed housing and meal plan increase for freshman entering in fall 2009, which brought the condemnation of Regent Anne Mariucci, who was against the tuition-freeze proposals when they came before the board last year.
"These collective ideas of guaranteeing program rates when we cannot guarantee (how much actual costs of services) will rise is bad business practice," she said. "Mark my words, it will come back to bite us."
After spirited discussion, ASU's proposal passed 5-3, and NAU's passed 6-2.
don't have to be rich to be a degree...just be smart...
If students aren't robbed, raped or ripped off then they are infected with the crap growing in the walls and floors.
The UA is totally corrupt.