AMARILLO, TEXAS -- UPDATE:
WTAMU hosted their second public hearing over a proposed hike in fees and this time students actually came.
WT student, Logan Moore, says the fee situation is a bitter-sweet one.
"I have to take out loan, after loan, after loan. Does this make it to where I will have a bigger school debt whenever I'm out of here? Yes. However, something that I understand and that I've learned is that out of any debt that you're going to have -- school debt is the best."
PREVIOUSLY POSTED:
Colleges and universities in Texas are scrambling for solutions in the wake of more budget cutting from Austin.
After increasing tuition last year, officials at West Texas A & M say they could not raise it again.
But with lawmakers tinkering with funding, WT has decided to raise fees in a few areas.
On the drawing board are library and student service fees, and a list of others, that would offset some of the funding that may be cut.
There was a public hearing tonight at the Amarillo Center in WT's downtown campus for a presentation and Q and A session.
But not a single student showed up, so the presentation was cancelled for the night.
It was a turnout that WT President J. Patrick O'Brien says didn't surprise him.
"This year we're not doing a designated tuition increase only some fees and possibly we haven't decided yet which fees we're going up with, so I understand that the turnout was pretty sparse," said O'Brien.
There are two more hearings scheduled for tomorrow.
They'll be on WT's campus at 11:45 a.m. and 4 p.m. in the JBK Student Center.
Other fee's that are possibly going to be raised are medical services, athletic inter-collegiate fee's, transportation fee, application fee's are going from $25 to $40 and there will also be an increase in graduate fee's
O'Brien said that they were going to be providing more security in some area's, as well as making up a $200,000 loss when they stopped charging full time on campus students the distant education fee last year.
PREVIEW:
CANYON, TEXAS Students at WTAMU may soon face a higher cost for their education. The university is looking at raising fees for the 2011-2012 academic year.
There are three public hearings on the proposed fee hikes scheduled for this week. The first hearing is 5:00p.m. Monday night at the Amarillo Center in room 1011. The other two meetings are Tuesday at the Jack B. Kelley Student Center at the Canyon campus. Those meetings are scheduled for 11:45a.m. and 4:00p.m.
A .pdf file of the presentation is available here.
