UND outlines budget pressures to House appropriations committee, warns tuition likely to rise

University of North Dakota President Andy Armacost told the House Appropriations — Education and Environment Division during a hearing on Senate Bill 2003 that the university has seen enrollment and research gains but still faces major operating cost pressures that the Senate’s current version of the budget does not fully cover.

Armacost said the Senate’s plan leaves the University of North Dakota and its medical school short of the funding needed to cover inflation, salary and benefit increases and other operating costs. "We would have to increase the UND tuition by just over 5% and the School of Medicine’s tuition by just over 4%," Armacost said in testimony to the committee.

The university presented slides showing four categories of operating increases — market equity and merit, benefits/cost to continue, inflation-driven operating costs and other systemwide requests — that together require roughly $60 million in additional resources across UND and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Armacost told the panel that the general fund share in the Senate engrossed bill covers…