If a dismal budget forecast released Tuesday holds true, MSU’s Tuition Guarantee will be suspended for a second year, raising tuition more than the rate of inflation, university officials say.

“It’s over. It was a great thing and it’s over,” Trustee Robert Weiss said. “I don’t think there is any guarantee at this point.”

The guarantee, established in December 1994, promised the university would keep tuition increases at or below the rate of inflation as long as MSU received inflation-adjusted appropriations from the state.

MSU’s Board of Trustees voted in July to suspend the guarantee and increase tuition 8.9 percent after a lower than expected fund increase from the Legislature.

With a $1.4 billion deficit predicted in the 2003 state budget, many trustees are preparing for the worst. Gov. John Engler is expected to announce his draft of the budget on Feb. 7.

“I think we’re all going to have to be very prudent about looking at our expenses and seeing what we have to cut, while at the same time doing the best we can to keep tuition as low as we can,” Weiss said. “It will not be a happy time.”

Tuesday’s report from state officials on the predicted deficit may have been more severe than many expected.

“We’ve known that this was going to be a difficult budget year and we just have to try our best to get as much support from the state as possible,” MSU President M. Peter McPherson said. “We’re going to have to be very careful with the monies that we have - these are not easy times for anybody in the country.”

A repeal of the Michigan Tuition Tax Credit, a program created as an incentive to keep tuition increases low, would have brought MSU’s increase down to a 6 percent level. MSU officials lobbied unsuccessfully for the repeal.

The effort failed again in October when state Rep. Paul DeWeese, R-Williamston, a long-time supporter of the repeal, showed up late for a meeting and missed the vote.

McPherson said the university needs to be “frugal” with whatever appropriation it receives.

State Rep. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said the university isn’t likely to receive relief from Michigan lawmakers.

“I think when we look at a deficit of this magnitude, nothing is free from speculation on the cutting table,” she said. “In lean economic times, still, the best investment we can make is education.”

Times have been tough for a while now, Trustee David Porteous said.

“We’re feeling the full effects of the softer economy,” he said. “I know that the administration and the faculty are continually looking at ways to stretch the scarce dollars as far as possible.”

But they may not have to stretch for long.

“Unless something very unusual happens, most forecasts are calling for improvement of the economy in the next few months,” economics Professor Charles Ballard said. “It’s unlikely that this recession will still be going on past spring.”

But despite Ballard’s optimism, the road ahead could still be a bumpy one. It will be difficult to reinstate the guarantee next year, he said.

“It’s going to be tough for the universities to find the funds with which to balance their budgets, given the fiscal situation that the state government is now finding itself in,” Ballard said. “There are difficult realities if they want to maintain the quality of the institution.

“Bills have to be paid.”

Trustee Scott Romney said although the budget hasn’t been decided, the administration knows what it’s not going to do.

“We’re certainly not going to do what Central Michigan (University) and other schools have done,” Romney said. “We’re going to be careful.”

Central Michigan announced Dec. 11 that it was raising tuition about 28 percent.

Trustee Dee Cook said she would hesitate to make any tuition predictions until she saw more solid data.

“Every day it seems that the news gets a little darker and a little more difficult,” she said. “We’re going to try to do everything we can do to make education at Michigan State affordable.”

Still, with a health care cost increase of nearly 20 percent already set for next year, no one knows what could happen to tuition.

“We are prepared that it’s liable to be pretty staggering,” Cook said. “We’ll try to get the information out as fast as we get it.”

Ed Ronco can be reached at roncoedw@msu.edu.