This COLA comes after a summer decision by the regents to boost salaries 12 percent for fiscal year 2024. This additional COLA, earmarked for fiscal year 2025, will take effect in October 2024.
The Nevada State Legislature approved the raises last session, but did not fully fund them, leaving regents and university administrators with tough decisions on how to cover those costs.
Yet after hours of testimony advocating for the 11 percent and a multilevel advising process that included faculty and student organizations, the regents voted unanimously to approve the highest COLA award possible. To partially offset that, the regents, after mostly positive feedback from students, approved a five percent tuition increase.
District 6 regent Heather Brown of southern Clark County said the COLAs will boost the quality of education.
“This increase in tuition will have an immediate return on investment,” she said. “And we’re not asking students to pay higher tuitions to build a building that future students will be able to utilize. This difference is actually asking students to further invest in their own future.”
Some student government representatives shared stories of positive relationships with faculty.
Some workforce and operational cuts will also happen across campuses to offset the COLAs. An NSHE briefing paper prepared for the meeting estimated 141 position cuts systemwide, with the majority of those, 108, happening at the University of Nevada, Reno.
As a note of disclosure, the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents owns the license to this station.
The image in this story is a screenshot from the NSHE Board of Regents meeting that was live streamed on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. Click here to view the recorded video on YouTube.
Jose Davila IV is a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project.