LARAMIE -- Gov. Dave Freudenthal will not oppose a 5 percent tuition increase proposed for University of Wyoming resident undergraduates, the governor's chief of staff said Tuesday.

The proposal will be considered by the UW Board of Trustees on Thursday and Friday.

In January 2007, Freudenthal's opposition to an increase in resident undergraduate tuition spurred the trustees to reject UW President Tom Buchanan's proposal to raise that rate by 3 percent annually. The governor did not oppose increases for nonresident undergraduates and all graduate students, and those were approved. But resident undergraduate tuition has remained the same since then.

Buchanan is now proposing 5 percent annual increases for all students for the next two years, but wants to cover the increases for the 2010-11 academic year with federal stimulus funds. Freudenthal supports that idea, chief of staff Chris Boswell said.

That would mean that no UW student would feel next year's 5 percent increase, but all would pay 10 percent more than the current tuition in the following year.

Under the Buchanan proposal, revenue from the tuition increases would be applied equally to bulk up library collections and to invigorate the support budgets for academic programs, including such things as laboratory and classroom supplies and travel. UW estimates that the tuition increases for all students would generate an additional $1.85 million next year and $3.7 million the following year.

Several factors have changed the governor's position from three years ago, Boswell said.

"At that time the Hathaway Scholarship Program was just ramping up, and state support for UW was increasing," he said. "The governor wanted to see the effect of the scholarship program. But now with the economic decline and the reduction in UW's budget, the governor thinks it would be reasonable to impose modest increases in resident undergraduate tuition."

A decline in state revenues prompted the governor to require UW to cut $18 million from its budget for the current fiscal year.

Boswell said that offsetting the need for tuition increases is a central part of the federal stimulus program for higher education institutions.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jim McBride is also an ex-officio member of the UW board and also opposed the increase in 2007, for the same reasons the governor advanced. This time, he said Tuesday, "there is a definite need for additional resources at UW. They will probably have to cut programs without an increase in tuition for all students."

McBride said he doesn't think the tuition increase would prevent any low-income students from attending UW. "If you have been a reasonably good student and you want to go to college, there are programs in place to allow every kid in Wyoming to find a way to go," he said.

The membership of UW's Board of Trustees has changed little since that 2007 vote. Three of the five trustees who voted for the tuition increase and five of the seven who opposed it are still on the board.

One of the charts prepared by UW for its tuition discussion shows that the cost of education for a student has risen from about $14,000 10 years ago to $23,000. The tuition paid by resident undergraduates as a percentage of the actual cost has remained at about 18 percent during that 10-year period, while that percentage for nonresident undergraduates has declined from about 52 percent to 47 percent.

UW figures for the 2008-09 academic year showed that UW's tuition and fees stood at $3,621 for resident undergraduates and $11,031 for nonresidents for 30 credit hours. The average at 25 public doctoral institutions UW chose for comparison was $7,344 for residents and $18,997 for nonresidents.