Tuition at UT-Austin will increase by 5.4 percent — including a student-approved $65 fee for the Student Activities Center — in 2010-11, increasing tuition to about $4,709 per semester. Tuition will then increase by 3.89 percent in 2011-12, which will increase tuition to about $4,892 per semester.

UT-Permian Basin will have the highest tuition increase in 2010-11 at 7.34 percent, for a total cost of about $3,086 per semester. The increase includes a student-approved $150 fee per semester for the construction of a student center. UT-Permian Basin President David Watts said the money from the actual tuition increase will go toward the university’s financial aid program.

Adriana Andrade, president of UT-Permian Basin’s Student Senate, said she feels the tuition increase is a great opportunity for the university.

“With the growth of UTPB comes the need for tuition increases,” Andrade said. “It is necessary to ensure that students at UTPB receive the education they deserve. These proposed increases are so small compared to other schools that we feel like we’re cheating the system.”

Josh Bart, secretary of the Student Government Association at UT-San Antonio, said he supports the tuition increases because he feels they are necessary to sustain the university’s growth. UT-San Antonio will be increasing tuition by a little more than 4.5 percent in each of the next two years for rates of $4,206 per semester in 2010-11 and $4,396 per semester in 2011-12.

“In the past, students at UTSA have shown a considerable desire and a willingness to support student fees and increases in tuition that will benefit them,” Bart said. “We had numerous voices involved in the committee process, so I feel students as a whole are willing to pay for these increases.”

But UT-Pan American President Robert Nelsen, whose university serves one of the 25 poorest counties in the country according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, said even with the tuition increases of $140 per semester — or about 5 percent — the university could still face a $21.4 million deficit. Students at UT-Pan American, who have the lowest tuition rate among all schools in the system, will pay about $2,904 per semester in 2010-11 and about $3,044 in 2011-12.

Raghuveer Puttagunta, UT-Pan American student body president, said feedback regarding the increases was mixed. The Student Government Association received petitions with more than 400 student signatures against the increases and two of the 18 members on the tuition-setting committee voted against the proposal. Puttagunta said the nominal increase in tuition does not make a dent in the overall budget shortfalls of the university.

“The state must assist in higher education, [and] the Legislature must hold fast to its responsibilities,” he said. “It is your constant insistence as the Board of Regents to facilitate in the process and we are willing to work with all to remedy the situation.”

All the universities’ tuition plans closely mirror guidelines established by a non-binding resolution passed by the Texas House of Representatives in the summer. The bill, which was proposed by Rep. Dan Branch of Dallas and did not pass in the Senate, recommends all universities cap tuition increases at 3.95 percent or at $140 per semester, whichever is greater. The bill states that student referendums, much like the Student Activities Center fee at UT, can be excluded.