COEUR d'ALENE - When the Idaho State Board of Education meets next week in Moscow, the University of Idaho will propose a 6.1 percent tuition increase.

University President Duane Nellis told The Press editorial board on Wednesday the hike is needed to help fund a 2 percent salary increase for faculty and staff.

It will be the first pay raise employees have received in four years, and is needed, Nellis said, to help the university retain quality, expert instructors in a competitive market.

"We did lose our top wheat breeder this year to Oregon State for $35,000 a year more in salary. We tried to counter that, but he made the decision to leave, so it's important that we have some additional funds to recruit the best people in not only agriculture, but in all of our strategic areas," Nellis said.

The tuition increase will add $40 per month, a total of $356 to the annual tuition of $5,800.

During the last legislative session, Idaho lawmakers - for the first time in four years - infused some funding into higher education, but it's not enough to allow a 2 percent pay increase, Nellis said. It doesn't fill the gaps left by a decade of shrinking budgets. "We've worked very closely with our students on this," Nellis said.

And the students support the increase, he said.

Even with another tuition hike, the third in three years, the cost of a degree at U of I remains a bargain, and the students know it.

In a recent survey, 83 percent of students said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the amount they are paying at U of I.

They should be; the university is one of the most affordable schools around. It ranked third on Newsweek's most recent list of the "cheapest" schools in the nation.

"I think we're doing a lot of things right, when other states, financially they have serious budget problems, the state of Idaho is managing their affairs well, and I think the University of Idaho is managing its affairs well also," Nellis said.

Again, it appears the students agree; 99 percent of seniors surveyed said they were happy with their experience at U of I.

At the end of the month, the university is re-launching a $225 million capital campaign it quietly began working on in 2007.

The campaign, the most ambitious in the state's history, will run through 2014, the 125th anniversary of the university's founding in 1889.