Each year, the 16 voting-member Regents approve two tuition rates: the first-tier rate helps pay for wages and benefits; the second tier covers other expenses and varies by school. On Friday, the board will set the first-tier tuition - an across-the-board hike for all of Utah's state-owned colleges and universities, except the Utah College of Applied Technology.

Regents adopt the first-tier hike as a signal to the Legislature - which begins Jan. 16 - that they are willing to take the first step toward securing more money for salaries.

The proposed first-tier tuition must cover not only raises, but a 10.4 percent increase in health insurance and a 6 percent hike in state retirement for faculty and staff.

"[It's] basically the same thing we asked for last year," said Regents spokeswoman Amanda Covington. "We are asking that [students'] share of the compensation increase be frozen around 25 percent instead of 35 percent."

The state would pay the other 75 percent of education costs.

If the Legislature adopts the proposed 75/25 formula, it would mean a lower first-tier tuition increase for public college students, she added.

Republican Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, who co-chairs the legislature's Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, says educators already got the wage package they wanted during the last legislative session. His recollection of last year's 3.5 percent increase in higher-ed wages was that it was based on a 75/25 formula. "It wasn't made into a [legislative] policy, but the actual funding was made on that basis," he said.

But that's just the first step for students.

Next month, public colleges and universities will begin holding "truth in tuition" hearings with students before Regents' approval of the second-tier rate. Each school has the ability to raise tuition between 4 percent and 10 percent beyond the first tier. Student body officers often are the only ones who show up to say students agree to the second-tier tuition hike.

Ryan Starks, student body president at Weber State University, said higher education officials made their pitch and earned student leaders' support for the 75/25 percent plan for first-tier tuition. He was uncertain, however, as to the actual dollar amount student leaders agreed to back.

Regents already have submitted higher education's 2006-07 budget request, asking for $57.2 million in addition to a $633.5 million state-supported operating budget. That request represents a 7.3 percent increase from the current year's budget.

In addition to the bigger paychecks, Regents also want $5 million for salary retention. In 2005, legislators gave higher education nearly $3 million to keep some of the top-ranked professors and researchers from leaving Utah for higher wages elsewhere.

sykes@sltrib.com