David Jesse

Detroit Free Press

Daniel Williams is a bit envious of his cousin, Markus Washington.

Not because of the football team at Washington’s school — Ohio State University — but because Washington has never seen a tuition increase in his three years at the school. Williams, a fourth-year student at the University of Michigan, has seen increases every year of his college career.

“We were working together this summer when we heard what (U-M)’s increase was going to be,” Williams said. “This year’s hike isn’t too much (3.9%), but it’s still more than zero.”

► Related: U-M hikes tuition for undergrads nearly 4%

As students at Michigan’s 15 public universities begin classes this year, they all will see higher base tuition rates than last year. But that’s not the case at some schools in other states — including Big Ten schools Purdue University and Ohio State University, where it has been years since tuition was increased.

So why can Purdue and OSU not raise tuition while the cost of attending fellow Big Ten schools U-M and Michigan State University keeps climbing? The answer is pretty complex, those in charge of the schools say, but state aid and cost cutting have played big roles.

► Related: Michigan State University board approves almost 4% tuition hike

Public university tuition in Michigan increased by 100% to 150% since 2003, depending on the school, according to a new Back to School Report released this month by the Michigan League for Public Policy. Tuition at Michigan universities is the sixth highest in the nation, the report said.

The report, Rising Tuition and Weak Financial Aid Create More Student Debt, cites skyrocketing college costs, decreased state higher education funding, and reduced state financial aid for causing mountains of debt that will loom over students for decades. Between 2003 and 2016-2017, Michigan cut state funding to universities by more than $262 million, a 30% decrease in public support after adjusting for inflation. State funding for need-based financial aid per full-time equivalent student has declined by 55% since 1992 when adjusted for inflation.

“As the college semester gets under way, too many students and families have had to take on a mountain of debt to get there or are being priced out of a higher education altogether,” said Gilda Z. Jacobs, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy. “Over the last 13 years, public university tuition has drastically gone up while state funding for universities plummeted by almost a third, leaving students and families to foot the bill. Once again, Michigan is a national leader in a negative category — and one that runs counter to the political rhetoric of attracting and keeping talent.”

Deal with legislators

It has been five years since Ohio State University has raised tuition, and each year, it’s getting harder not to raise it, OSU President Michael Drake told the Free Press.

Holding tuition steady has only been possible because of state support thanks to a deal OSU cut with legislators.

OSU agreed to take a look at duplicative services on its campuses and consolidating functions into central offices, instead of having the same thing being done in each individual college. Then, OSU administrators asked the state to help make up the money lost by keeping tuition flat.

“If we had not found efficiencies first, our agreement with the state wouldn’t be the same,” Drake said. “We operate on a very broad scale, so that allows us to find those efficiencies. We looked for little things here and there, things like how many copy machines we had. We looked at where we were buying French fries.”

OSU has 65,000 total students, 58,000 on the Columbus campus. Annual tuition for an in-state undergraduate was $10,037 for 2015-16. It has total revenues of $6.1 billion, with state support bringing in $491 million.

In comparison, tuition last year at the University of Michigan was $13,856 and $13,560 at MSU. Tuition at other Big Ten schools ranged from a low of $8,104 at the University of Iowa to $17,514 at Penn State.

OSU also increased how much it costs for an out-of-state student or international student to attend. Those students are charged a surcharge on the normal tuition rate. For the second straight year, OSU also froze housing costs.

Drake doesn’t know how much longer OSU can go without increases.

“What will determine that is the support we get from the Legislature and the philanthropic community,” he said. “You can’t continue to cut yourself without hurting excellence.”

Ohio State isn’t the only Big Ten conference school that hasn’t raised tuition for several years. Purdue University hasn’t hiked tuition for years.

Tuition at the West Lafayette, Ind., school has been kept at the same rate since 2012-13 — in-state students paying $10,002, out-of-state students paying $28,804 and international students paying $30,804.

The university also has held meal plan and housing charges flat since 2014.

The key, university officials said, is looking everywhere for money.

Among what they’ve done: consolidated data centers and coordinated with the regional campuses on bulk purchasing in information technology to get several hundred thousand dollars in savings that continues to repeat and grow each year; did collective purchasing of diesel fuel and renegotiated contracts for bus service and parking, and cut unneeded rental storage in half, for an annual savings of $160,000.

The university also drastically cut budgets to individual schools and shrank graduate enrollment. It had a $2.4-billion budget in 2015-15, with $387.6 million in state aid. That overall budget is nearly identical to its budget in 2011-12.

Tuition and required fees for average in-state undergraduate 2015-16 2012-13 Penn State University $ 17,514 $ 16,444 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign $ 15,626 $ 14,960 Rutgers University $ 14,131 $ 13,073 University of Michigan $ 13,856 $ 13,819 University of Minnesota - Twin Cities $ 13,790 $ 13,459 Michigan State University $ 13,560 $ 13,211 University of Wisconsin - Madison $ 10,416 $ 10,385 Indiana University $ 10,388 $ 10,033 The Ohio State University $ 10,037 $ 10,037 Purdue University $ 10,002 $ 10,002 University of Maryland $ 9,996 $ 9,162 University of Nebraska $ 8,279 $ 7,897 University of Iowa $ 8,104 $ 8,057

Why not U-M?

At the University of Michigan, the budget for the main campus in Ann Arbor was $7 billion in 2015-16. That same year, the school got $345.1 million from the state.

The average freshman this fall at U-M is paying $14,402 for tuition — an increase of $546 from 2015 — and $45,410 per year for non-Michigan residents — up from $43,476 last year.

MSU had a budget of $1.2 billion in 2015-16 and got $268.3 million in state appropriations that year. The East Lansing school raised tuition by 3.7% for in-state undergraduates this fall. It costs $14,092 annually for the average freshman to attend MSU.

When the University of Michigan is working on its annual budget, each member of the Board of Regents has a chance to interact with administration officials and offer suggestions.

It’s not uncommon for some regent or another to suggest a flat tuition rate, said longtime board member Andrea Fischer Newman, one of three regents who voted against the 3.9% increase for this fall. The budget and tuition increase passed by a 5-3 vote.

“I told them (this year) I can't support a budget that cuts costs in some areas and then increases costs in others,” she told the Free Press. “We saved $23 million through operational efficiency and unit reductions and then re-spent the money dollar for dollar. We also increased the number of students — both in-state and out-state — raising even more money for the general fund. So I made it clear from the beginning that I did not think a tuition increase was necessary this year.”

Neither Gov. Rick Snyder nor his budget director has ever had conversations with a Michigan public university about a deal like Ohio State's — the university trimming expenses and keeping tuition flat in exchange for the state making up the revenue that would be lost from tuition, said Snyder spokeswoman Anna Heaton.

"But both are always open to listening to ideas and working with higher education institutions on ways to keep college affordable for Michigan families, while making appropriate investments in our higher education system," Heaton said.

When U-M was getting ready to unveil the budget this summer, Fischer Newman posted a lengthy series of thoughts on Purdue and flat tuition on her Facebook page.

“The Purdue case study can serve as the start of a broader discussion of how to properly ‘size’ higher education,” she wrote then.

And what is the right size for U-M?

“There's not a textbook answer for the proper ‘size’ of higher education as every institution has its own mission and resources. And I cannot speak for other schools," she said.

“A sensible size for U-M would strike a balance between the number of students, administration and infrastructure using resources that don't overburden students, their families or taxpayers."

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj