COLUMBIA, MO (KTVI) – Parents get ready to pay more for your child’s college tuition if they’re headed to a Missouri System university this fall. The U.M. Board of Curators voted to increase tuition by 2.1 percent. The board also voted to increase student fees.

“We have challenges you know we have to address so that’s the reason they did what they did today,” said the board spokesman John Fougere.

The challenges included state budget cuts and a lower enrollment.

Some students believe raising tuition will only cause tuition numbers to decline even more.

“We should be working towered lower tuitions and not raising them,” said Mizzou senior Husain Agha. “It brings revenue to the state when you have investment in higher education and so I just really think these people can’t see that, the big picture.”

The board also discussed trying to find ways to operate more efficiently but the only action taken during Tuesday’s meeting was to increase fees and tuition.

“We obviously have significant budgetary challenges right now and we have to look for ways to grow revenue and that is one option that is open,” Fougere said. “So that’s why the board went ahead today and took that option.”

The tuition increase of is the highest amount the board could approve under Missouri law. That’s because any increase cannot exceed the Consumer Price Index at the time of the increase.