Even though the Florida Legislature expects FAMU to receive most of its 2012-2013 operating funds from tuition and fees, that is unlikely to happen.FAMU is slated to receive a total of $65.5M in general revenue for 2012-2013. The legislature projects that the university will bring in $72M in tuition and fees.
The legislature’s tuition and fee projections are unrealistic. Each year, the legislature bases its tuition and fee estimates on the bogus assumption that every university student will take a full course load.
The legislature projected that FAMU would generate $57M in tuition and fees for the fiscal year ending (FYE) 2010. FAMU actually collected $11M less than that figure for a total of $46M.
Even though the legislature continues to use projections that are out-of-touch with reality, FAMU has had the highest lower division course load average among the ten traditional State University System of Florida (SUS) schools for the past three years. FAMU’s freshmen and sophomores averaged 14.0 credit hours in Fall 2008, 14.0 in Fall 2009, and 13.9 in Fall 2010.
Currently, the only SUS institution that is beating FAMU’s lower division course load average is New College of Florida. It is a non-traditional liberal arts college that provides individualized written evaluations instead of letter grades. NCF also has the lowest tuition in the entire SUS.
Legislative tuition/fee projections:
2010: $57,171,795
2009: $52,778,244
2008: $52,367,797
2007: $56,427,269
FAMU’s tuition/fee collections:
2010: $46,096,506
2009: $45,262,162
2008: $39,436,794
2007: $39,255,167
The legislature estimates that FAMU will make $59,607,188 in tuition and fees during FYE 2011 and $64,091,635 during FYE 2012.
Source: FAMU Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reports.