Cyndi Loza

Students could face higher tuition and fees after the Nevada Board of Regents meets this week.

Meeting Thursday and Friday in Carson City, regents will vote on a committee’s recommendation for a 5 percent increase per credit for undergraduates in 2009 and 2010 at the state college, four community colleges and two universities and a 10 percent tuition increase for university graduate students.

“Nobody likes to raise tuition,” University of Nevada, Reno President Milton Glick said. “But we would like to improve the quality of our programs and increase student success.”

The board’s Tuition and Fees Committee recommended the increases.

Glick said the primary goals of the tuition increase are to provide more financial aid for students and improve the quality of education with more senior faculty and class availability.

Some students oppose the increase in tuition.

“That’s horrible,” said UNR sophomore Anna Gardikiotis, 20. “A lot of people use student loans to pay for rent and bills, so how are they going to pay for school (tuition)? It’s just making things worse.”

Josh Larkin, a UNR biomedical engineering graduate student, said he would not mind an increase.

“I don’t have a problem with an increase so long as the students see a direct benefit from an increase in tuitions, too,” said Larkin, adding the money should be used for quality facilities and educators.

A raise in tuition is needed in Nevada, said David Longanecker, president of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education.

“Tuition is an important revenue for these institutions, so it is important to generate that revenue,” Longanecker said. “It’s even more important for Nevada because you’re growing so rapidly and the state is cutting back on its resources so often tuition fills in the gap that the state (cannot).”

Even if tuition is increased, attending a college or university in Nevada is “still a heck of a good buy,” Longanecker said.

Nevada ranked lowest in the Western region in average tuition and fees for resident undergraduates in the 2006-07 school year for public four-year institutions, according Longanecker’s agency. The statewide average price in Nevada was $2,977 compared to the highest in Oregon of $5,498.

Jane Nichols, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for the Nevada System of Higher Education, said she does not anticipate students picketing as they did at the meeting last month in Las Vegas.

“We can be wrong,” Nichols said. “It can happen, but we certainly don’t anticipate that because the students are included in this process all along the way.”