A special session Student Senate meeting took place on Aug. 29 to address budget concerns. University president Dr. Patrick O’Brien came to speak to student senators about the challenges the school will face for the upcoming year.

WTAMU took a $3 million budget cut for the 2011-2012 school year, according to the Amarillo Globe-News. That’s only a fraction of the $180 million budget cut in Texas higher education, according to the Texas Tribune. The Texas legislature also cut $150.4 million  from the state’s financial aid funding, which includes the TEXAS grants and the B-On-Time loans.

The cuts have caused state universities to scramble and re-evaluate spending.

“WT has done a lot of restructuring without having to do any layoffs,” Dr. O’Brien said. Along with making cuts to the travel, utilities and maintenance budget, Dr. O’Brien stated that the University will also be tapping into $1 million in reserve money to offset costs. Despite that, the president doesn’t plan on relying on those funds alone to make up for the budget cuts.

“University standing committees will also look at academic and non-academic budgets and find areas to save money and to run efficiently without sacrificing quality,” he said.

Student Government will also be involved in the process by appointing individuals to these committees.

“Student Government [implements] a ‘student perspective,’” Student Body President Brandy Roberts said. “This is very important because as students, we know what programs students value.”

Charles Potter, an out-of-state student from Idaho, attended WT last year as a Computer Science major. Although he is taking time off due to financial reasons, he plans on returning. However, he is afraid of how the budget cuts will affect his major once he returns.

“I will be really depressed [if the cuts are severe],” he said. “Computer Science is one of those careers that you need the latest technology to keep up.”

Although tuition and fees for the 2012-2013 school year still need to go through the West Texas A&M Board of Regents to be finalized, Dr. O’Brien discussed the possibility of eliminating the Distance Education fee and raise the Technology fee.

“It doesn’t make sense to have both [fees],” Dr. O’Brien said. “There was a time where [having both] was necessary, but that time has passed.”

Currently, the Distance Education fee is $40 per credit hour for online students only, while the Technology fee is $11 per credit hour for all students.

Although WT isn’t the only Texas university dealing with the strain of budget cuts, Roberts feels that the university is in a good position.

“After talking to the Student Regent, Fernando Trevino, I am glad to say that WT is actually one of the schools that handled the budget cuts responsibly,” she said.
“In simpler terms, WT didn’t have to increase tuition, and while there were some fee increases, the increases were not nearly as high as other system schools.”

Courtesy of National Center for Education Statistics