The Tech Board of Trustees Thursday approved a 4.3 percent tuition increase and a new mandatory transportation fee.
Vice President for Planning and Finance Claire Stinson said the university requested an exception from the state to exceed standard fee ranges to address long-standing campus parking issues. The proposal includes a $110 mandatory transportation fee that would replace the current $260 annual optional parking permit.
“Parking in our campus transportation has been a consistent complaint by the students,” Stinson said. “And, so, you know, we did a survey. Some of the feedback we got was they did not want us to build a parking garage in areas where we already had parking and take that parking away.”
Stinson said the university requested the Tennessee Higher Education Commission set Tennessee Tech’s range at 6.2 percent to accommodate the fee restructuring. Stinson said the university was the only public institution in the state to request such an exception.
“The reason we had to go ask for an exception, is sort of more the mechanics of how it’s set up than the actual dollars, to be quite honest,” Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham said. “I mean, I just did a quick estimate. If you roll all this in together, the tuition and fee increase total that we’re asking for once you net out the reduction of the parking fee that we’re getting rid of, is actually probably closer to 3.7 percent overall, okay? It’s under four percent.”
The flat fee will support construction of a new 814-space parking garage while also helping fund the university’s shuttle service and other transportation infrastructure.
Stinson said the university issued 4,152 tickets to students parking without permits during the last academic year. Stinson said many of these violations occurred during inclement weather when students who had paid for permits could not find available spaces.
“I can understand their irritation,” Stinson said. “So that’s kind of what I saw when I started digging into the data. The students have asked for improvements in the campus shuttle. That is available to all of our students.”
Stinson said the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes a $15 million increase from the previous July. Stinson said the budget is balanced and includes state appropriations for salary increases.
“We have some fixed costs that are not in this budget that we know we’re gonna have to pay,” Stinson said.
Oldham said the university must manage significant deferred maintenance issues that require approximately $10 million to $12 million annually just to maintain current conditions. Oldham said the state provided less than $4 million for maintenance this year, requiring the university to be creative with existing funds.
“The state is not giving us enough to catch up with deferred maintenance,” Oldham said. “And so we have to get pretty creative with use of existing dollars to try to fill the gap where we can.”
The committee also recommended a capital budget request for the 2027-2028 fiscal year that prioritizes a new Life Science building and a Social Sciences building. Stinson said the university is also requesting $20 million for major infrastructure upgrades to address aging steam lines across the campus.
