SIU President Randy Dunn met with the Graduate Student and Professional Council to discuss student and university spending towards healthcare, classes and student services.

A plan was purposed that would create new student health care benefits in compliance with the Affordable Healthcare Act.

President Dunn said there might be problems getting the undergraduate and graduate student council to agree on a new healthcare plan.

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“It’ll probably come at a higher cost with a commercial provider,” he said. “The problem is the undergraduate students might not be willing to pay for more coverage when they don’t need it. The new plan has to be what you (graduate students) need, but also pricing sensitive.”

Amanda Barnard, vice president for graduate school affairs, said any new student insurance plan had to be in agreement with the ACA.

“It really comes down to agreeing on a AFCA compliant plan or removing student health insurance in general,” she said.

A new student insurance plan would be more costly for both undergraduate and graduate students, but also provide more coverage. However, undergraduate students would be still be able to opt out of university-provided healthcare.

Patrick Hunn, vice president for administrative affairs, said health insurance was one of many elements graduate students had to take into consideration when it comes to costs.

“Graduate students studying law used to have a 15 hour cap on credit hours which means that they could take 18 and still pay that fixed rate,” he said. “This year that 15 hour cap was removed and now students have to pay $478 per credit hour.”

This affects the frozen tuition rate graduate student who enrolled in 2012 have, because his or her tuition still increases annually if they enroll in more than 15 hours.

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Dunn said tuition was also higher because of a lack of budget cuts since the 1990s. He said solutions to decrease spending could be streamlining and determining which student services are unnecessary.

“One of the reasons tuition is more expensive is because we have yet to decide which programs are really important and what we need to cut,” he said. “We have not shed any of the student services we’ve traditionally had. I think we’re heading into a period where these things are going to have to be dealt with.”

Sarah Curtis, a graduate student from Carbondale studying English, said the recent hiring of new faculty members could help improve student morale, boost enrollment and in turn be fiscally prosperous for the university.

“The most important recruitment and retention tools we have on campus is our faculty,” she said. “They are the ones teaching and actually interacting with students on a daily basis.”

Dunn said unity was the key to recruiting more students and administration planned to communicate with departments more effectively to “create efficiencies.”

“The model going forward with administration is planned to be more decentralized,” he said. “We’re going to create a broader box, in which, within decisions will be made.”

Muriel Berry can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at Muriel_Berry_DE.