Students walk across the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. ASU announced it will add a tuition surcharge for on-campus students in spring 2025. (File photo by Sophie Oppfelt/Cronkite News)
PHOENIX – Arizona State University announced measures on Monday to deal with higher education budget cuts passed by the state Legislature. They include a tuition surcharge, cuts to programs such as the Arizona Teachers Academy and the Arizona Promise Program and the closing of its Lake Havasu center. Thousands of students and employees are expected to be affected.
The tuition surcharge is a $350 additional payment for full-time on-campus students in spring 2025. Part-time on-campus students will pay a proportional charge.
The Arizona Teachers Academy, which covers tuition and fees for students who commit to teaching in Arizona public schools, will serve 800 fewer new students. The Arizona Promise Program, which helps in-state, low-income students, will see a decrease of $10.9 million in funding, affecting potentially more than 2,600 students.
ASU President Michael Crow released a statement on the cuts.
“These necessary actions reflect the continuing lack of public investment from state government for higher education in Arizona,’’ Crow said. “ASU simply cannot be asked to fund the expansion of higher education across the state without state investment as a part of the financial structure to do so. These budget cuts put the state of Arizona even further behind in ensuring that Arizona has the talent and workforce necessary to advance its economy.”
Arizona spent the third-lowest amount in the country per capita on higher education ($183) in fiscal year 2024. Republican-controlled states, including Texas ($452), Louisiana ($360), Idaho ($333) and Florida ($317) each spent more, according to a report by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.
Between fiscal years 2009 and 2022, higher education revenue from state and local government appropriations in Arizona decreased 23 percentage points as compared to the national average, which fell 4 percentage points, according to a report from ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business.
“As a transfer student, I’m already paying $40,000 a year. So the extra money is going to be hard to pay off,” said Taina Fonseca, a sophomore studying journalism at ASU.
Fonseca said she thinks the surcharge will affect a lot of people.
“I feel like a lot of people are just going to be in debt because they’re taking out a lot of loans, so this is just going to be an extra expense on top of it,” Fonseca said.
Alberto Plantillas, the central regional director for the Arizona Students’ Association and a graduate student at ASU, said it’s “very embarrassing for the government to just keep cutting education and then saying that they care so much about education.”
The Arizona State University charter is shown on a sign at College Avenue and University Drive on Cady Mall in Tempe. Arizona spent the third-lowest amount in the country per-capita on higher education ($183) in fiscal year 2024. (Photo by Deanna Dent/Arizona State University)
State senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties said the cuts were not ideal.
“I think it’s a real shame. We know that higher education is a phenomenal economic driver for the state, and yet we are not appropriately investing in higher education,” said Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix.
Marsh said she has seen “an antagonistic attitude toward higher education” from the “majority party down at the Legislature.”
When asked about Democratic responsibility for the changes, she said, “I think there probably is. But, I know behind the scenes that Gov. (Katie) Hobbs really fought hard for higher education.” Later, Marsh said, “I don’t know if I’d call it fault (with the Democratic Party), but through the negotiating process, you’re not going to get everything you want.”
The Arizona state budget passed in June after weeks of negotiations between Arizona Democrats and Republicans.
Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, said it was “unfortunate the way the budget turned out for universities.” He said he doesn’t think “you can identify one person or one group as to blame. It’s just kind of a collection of factors. Inflation has been very difficult the last couple of years. … The public is not really ready for tax increases or anything like that.”
The senators spoke about how the Arizona Legislature prioritizes higher education spending.
“I think it comes back to intentional choices and the priorities of the legislative body as a whole, which, of course, I disagree with some of those priorities,” Marsh said.
Bennett said there was not an intentional decision to have lower per-capita funding for higher education than other states.
“I think that the other pressures on the state budget only allow certain amounts, first of all, because of those formulas in other parts of the state budget, those kind of get funded first, and the universities are left amongst a few other parts of state government to live with what’s left,” Bennett said.
Plantillas said ASU and its students are absorbing that burden.
“It’s just a constant trend of cutting education funding and saying that, ‘Oh, you know, the system is flawed and this and that,’ but the truth is they’re cutting funding,” Plantillas said.