From left, Municipal Judge Elizabeth Allen swears in newly elected UNM-LA Advisory Board Member Kristin Henderson while her daughters Violet and Eleanor Henderson look on during the board meeting Tuesday night. Courtesy/UNM-LA

Municipal Judge Elizabeth Allen swears in newly elected UNM-LA Advisory Board Member John Pawlak during the board meeting Tuesday night. Courtesy/UNM-LA

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

University of New Mexico-Los Alamos (UNM-LA) students will not see an increase in tuition in Fiscal Year 2025. During its regular meeting Monday, the UNM-LA Advisory Board unanimously approved to keep tuition fees flat during the next fiscal year.

Board member Chuck McCullough along with newly elected board members John Pawlak and Kristin Henderson were present at the meeting.

Tuition is $82 per credit hour and fees are $4.50 an hour. So, for a full-time student (12-18 hours), the cost is $1,048. 

UNM-LA Director of Business Operations Bob Harmon explained the reason behind leaving tuition unchanged.

For one, he said, the revenue generated by tuition for the overall budget is a little more than 15 percent. Adding fees to the amount increases it to 21.5 percent.

“It’s not a huge part of the revenue,” Harmon said. “I think the position of the executive team is knowing that and knowing what other institutions in the state are doing, we feel it may not be necessary to put that burden on the students …”

Chancellor Mike Holtzclaw added that the state’s Opportunity Scholarship plays a role in this decision.
“For many of our students … they don’t have to pay tuition now because of the scholarship, the state actually picks that up,” he said. “So, there has been a very strong suggestion by the state that we don’t raise tuition … we do have one of the higher tuition rates in the state combined with the fees … we feel at this time it is not prudent to raise that both in terms of pressure from the state but also not all our students are Opportunity Scholarship recipients…”

In other business, the advisory board:  

• Welcomed its new members Pawlak and Henderson. “Thank you for running to serve on this board,” Holtzclaw said. “We really appreciate it. We really rely on the advisory board to bring information to you … so you can go out there and really listen to the community about what we need to be doing here at UNM-LA but also to be an ambassador for our campus. One of things we often hear is that people have good impressions of UNM-LA, but they don’t really have a deep understanding of what we offer.”
• Recognized Director of Student Affairs Kathryn Vigil, who is retiring at the end of January. Holtzclaw said interviews are underway to find her replacement.
• Discussed the upcoming 30-day legislative session. Holtzclaw reported that he is working with Rep. Christine Chandler and Sen. Leo Jaramillo on changing UNM-LA’s base funding formula.
  “We are funded at the lowest level at the state,” he said, adding that changing that formula might not happen at this session but the goal is to start the conversation.
• Learned that during the upcoming fall election, two items are planned to be placed on the ballot: the authority to issue a bond and a bond to help with facilities and capital projects.
  Heard from Dean of Instruction Paul Allen that enrollment is up.
  “That means all of our classes are doing well,” he said. “Most of them are at least 15 or more students enrolled in them.”
• Vigil reported for the spring semester, “We are sitting at 22.5 percent increase in enrollment. We have had a really steady increase over time leading up to the spring semester …”
  She added that student credit hours are up at 19 percent.
• Learned from Allen that as far as courses at UNM-LA, the branch campus is partnering with the history department at the central campus on a new course, Making Our Community’s History, which is designed to teach the writing of history in a Native American context. Allen said this will primarily involve Native students working through their own histories.
  He added LANL renewed its partnership with UNM-LA on the Nuclear Expertise Science and Technology program. The first cohort graduated this past spring.
• Finally, heard a report from Vigil that graduation will be held at 6 p.m. May 9 at Crossroads Bible Church.

Scene from Tuesday night’s UNM-LA Advisory Board meeting. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com