Dan Woods sat down with Southeast President Carlos Vargas on Wednesday, May 25 and talked about a range of topics including the Spring 2016 commencement, next year's budget for higher education in Missouri, how tuition rates at Southeast compare with other area institutions and an update on the Greek Village.
Woods: So, it's been a busy month...inauguration at the beginning of the month and then commencement and I understand we had a record-breaking number of graduates.
Vargas: Yes, this Spring semester we had a total of 1,327...it's a record-breaking number of degrees. That includes about 1,050 undergraduate degrees and 276 master and specialist students. So, we're very pleased [and] of course now we need to make sure that we replenish those students at the university if we don't want to reduce our enrollment for this coming fall.
Woods: Well, let's talk about the budget for higher education in the state of Missouri and what was worked out with the governor on the state level here not too long ago.
Vargas: Sure. The governor, some few months ago, had originally proposed a six percent increase for the four-year universities and that would come with a commitment by the institutions to not increase tuition for in-state undergraduates. When the legislature reviewed the plan and proposal by the governor they made some changes. It went up and down, back and forth a little bit but we ended up at the end with a four percent increase instead of six percent and a still [a] commitment by the universities to not increase undergraduate in-state tuition.
Woods: How much money does that come out to for Southeast?
Vargas: For Southeast that corresponds to about $1.9 million. So, that's what we came out with at this point.
Woods: And I understand from some of your statistics that you were sharing with me before we went on the air that Southeast's tuition rates are some of the lowest in our area, is that right?
Vargas: Right. Actually, that is indeed the case. Based on the new rate schedule, Southeast tuition will remain lower than almost every comparable university in the region. Our tuition is going to be $199.30 per credit hour for fiscal year 2017. And that compares very well with say for example [the] University of Missouri-Columbia is going to be $276 per credit hour; Missouri State, $205, Truman State, $298 and Murray State, $350. So as you can see we are actually the lowest one among all those institutions.
Woods: Let's talk about Greek Life. I drove up Sprigg the other day and noticed the Greek Village is coming to life...you can start to see many of the buildings, so what's the update on what's going on over there?
Vargas: Yes, well the Greek Village is moving along [and] is scheduled to have two of the four houses be ready for this fall semester, this coming fall. And then two others will be ready for the following year for the following fall. So, we're excited. One thing that may be interesting is to know that at Southeast just over twelve percent of our student body has membership in Greek life, so it's exciting.
