Your tuition costs went up this year and are likely to go up again next year.

WSU and other universities are raising tuition and rolling back programs in response to cuts to the state budget, President John Bardo told a gathering of state legislators Wednesday. On Tuesday legislators began a six-day tour of state-funded universities across Kansas, as they do every two years.

In June, state legislators cut funding for state colleges and universities by a total of $66 million over the next two years.

WSU raised tuition by 8.1 percent in June. The cost of 15 credit hours after that increase is $3,463.25. June’s increase follows increases of 5.9 percent, 8.5 percent, 5 percent, 6 percent, and 4 percent over the past five years. The state university system saw cuts to its funding in most of those years. In 2009, the cost of 15 credit hours was $2,542.25.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Bardo pointed to the effects of budget cuts. In addition to needing to raise tuition, he said, “I had put together a $1.8 million innovation fund, [but] because the university is so underfunded compared to other schools [in other states], we were forced to give that up.” The conversion of the Braeburn Golf Course into an engineering complex designed to be a place where WSU academics and Wichita businesses intersect has been put on hold.

On Wednesday, Bardo was asked, “Do you see a time in the future when it will be more difficult to raise tuition?”

He responded, “Yes. Are we there yet? No. We’re about $2,000 lower than the national average. But as far as where the market is, I don’t think we’re at market yet. …Tuition in Kansas has been consciously kept down compared to other states.”

Many of the legislators were critical of the value of investing in WSU. On Wednesday, Senator Steve Abrams pointed out that about 46 percent of WSU’s students graduate within six years of starting classes and said, “That means about 54 percent don’t. That doesn’t sound like the best investment.”

Bardo countered that WSU has a high proportion of non-traditional students, who are often expected to take more than four years to get a degree. “My father was a non-traditional student. He took 10 years to complete his Bachelor’s. He had a full-time job; he had a family. He just kept plugging at it until he finally got it. So he wouldn’t show up as a good number in our data, but he got it and he had a great career.”

Mildred Edwards of the Kansas Board of Regents agreed when asked about it later, saying, “It’s because of the median age of our students and the challenges that a returning adult student faces in completing a degree in that time frame.”

The budget cuts are part of Republican plans to eventually eliminate income taxes in Kansas. Income taxes were reduced in previous budgets, and Governor Sam Brownback plans to continue reducing them until they’re gone. With that source of revenue for the state declining, deep budget cuts and increases in other sources of tax revenue have been used to make up the shortfall. The 2010 sales tax hike from 5.7 percent to 6.3 percent that was scheduled to expire this year was changed to fall to 6.15 percent instead of falling back to its original level.

Although Governor Brownback has supported most cuts to the state budget, he opposed June’s cuts to the state’s higher education funding. A Republican faction that controls the House insisted on the cuts and Brownback was unable to stop them without incurring deeper cuts. He and allies in the Senate will likely attempt to restore some university funding in January.

Eliminating income tax and replacing that revenue with budget cuts and increases in other taxes is a recipe that has recently become more popular among Republican politicians in several states, including Kansas. Republicans are pressing for abandoning income tax in Missouri, Nebraska, and elsewhere. The last state to eliminate income tax was Alaska back in the 1980s.