Dear Faculty, Staff and Students:

In addition to approving the plan to address the impact of last week's
shutdown, the UT Board of Trustees also set tuition for the upcoming year
at its Friday meeting. The increases are as follows:

Undergraduate - 7.5% at all campuses both in-state and out-of-state.
Graduate - 7.5% at all campuses both in-state and out-of-state.
Law - 7.5% in-state and 3.0% out-of-state.
Medicine and Dentistry - 22.0% in-state and 10.0% out-of-state.
Pharmacy - 28.0% in-state and 7.0% out-of-state.
Veterinary Medicine - 10.0% in-state and 3.0% out-of-state.

As we considered our recommendations to the Board, we found ourselves in a
truly "no win" situation. This year's state budget has been characterized
as a "status quo or continuation" appropriation. It is much, much better
than the "no-new-revenue" (DOGS) proposal or even the CATS plan would have
been. Still, the state funding for next year alone is inadequate to
continue efforts to recruit and retain the best faculty to teach our
students, to maintain our efforts to upgrade classrooms and laboratories so
our students have access to the same technology available at our
competitors, and to cover increases in areas like utilities over which we
have little control.
We also recognize that Tennessee was considered a low tuition state for
many years, but this is no longer the case. Our students have shouldered
more and more of the burden of funding their college experience over the
past five years as state funding has lagged. Today, the Knoxville campus
tuition is slightly above the average of our peers. At Chattanooga and
Martin, it is as much as 15% above our peers. These tuition trend lines
cannot continue in a state that needs several hundred thousand more
Tennesseans to have a college degree to even be at the regional average.
While there is little more that can be done this year to minimize tuition
increases, I'm confident that we can and will start now to address the
issue of tuition hikes in the future.
Over the next few months, I will be consulting with students, faculty,
staff and others to assure that all University departments and operations
are spending every dollar as wisely and efficiently as possible. When
savings are realized and overhead costs cut, the vast majority of those
dollars will be reallocated to academic programs.
I also will be working with the members of our Board of Trustees as well as
our alumni leaders and other supporters to forge the sort of public-private
alliance needed to make the case for more public investment in higher
education. As part of this effort, I will work very closely with the
Tennessee Board of Regents and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
We will work with all stakeholders to give Tennessee the best university it
can afford while encouraging Tennesseans to afford the very best.
Cordially,
John W. Shumaker
UT President