By Austin Schmitt

The Kentucky institution that oversees postsecondary education voted on Friday to cap tuition increases for in-state undergraduates at 5 percent for the 2009-2010 school year.

The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education capped tuition at 5 percent for both UK and the University of Louisville, both classified as research universities. Tuition was capped at 4 percent for comprehensive institutions such as Western Kentucky University and 3 percent for community colleges.

With a 2 percent budget cut in state appropriations for this fiscal year, UK President Lee Todd said that there will be no layoffs this year but for the second year in a row, faculty will not receive a raise.

“No layoffs — faculty or staff,” Todd said. “We think we can make it.”

CPE President Robert King said the tuition process was a collaborative effort between CPE staff, campus presidents, legislative leaders and student government presidents.

“These ceilings demonstrate a genuine concern for students and families balanced with the need to preserve academic quality at our campuses,” King said. “I commend our campus presidents for coming together to achieve this balance.”

Todd will propose the tuition increases to the Board of Trustees at their meeting on Tuesday.

UK has increased tuition at an average of 10 percent over the last seven years. With a smaller-than-normal tuition increase, Todd doesn’t expect UK’s progress toward being a top-20 research institution to decline, but said it may slow some progress.

“Quality-wise, the biggest concern I have is if we let student-to-faculty ratio grow, we lose interaction between the two,” Todd said.

Since 2001, UK’s net state appropriations have increased by $6 million, a 3 percent increase. Over that period of time, UK has had their budget cut four times by the state legislature.

While state appropriations have remained somewhat steady over the last eight years, UK’s total operating budget has increased by nearly a billion dollars over that same period, a 43 percent increase.

Todd said that a combination of decreasing state funds and less-than-average tuition increases will not allow UK to hire more faculty, which in turn will force them to admit less students.

“We have to make the sacrifice of less students than faculty,” Todd said. “We made a commitment to faculty that we would keep that ratio (student to faculty) down.”

According to the Top 20 Business Plan, UK must continue to increase undergraduate enrollment and full-time faculty in order to meet their goals.

In spite of recent setbacks, Todd said the top-20 plan is not too ambitious and still has faculty support.

“(The top-20 plan) is extremely ambitious, but not too ambitious,” Todd said. “This state needs to be ambitious. I’ve yet to have faculty send me e-mails to drop the top-20 program.”