Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 said the fee hike seems unfair in light of the millions of dollars the University is spending on other projects.

“There’s something wrong when Harvard is upping tuition and firing service workers while paying fund managers tens of millions of dollars a year and planning a multi-billion dollar expansion in Allston,” Mahan wrote in an e-mail. “In my opinion, that should be a hard sell to any thoughtful student.”

Associate Dean of the Faculty Cheryl Hoffman-Bray said last month that in setting tuition, the FAS financial staff considers the financial state of FAS, inflation, family income and where the College stands among peer institutions.

“Setting tuition is an artform,” she said in an interview last month. “It’s not a science.”

She could not be reached for comment last night.

Vice President for Finance Ann E. Berman wrote in an e-mail that the annual tuition change is proposed by FAS but must be approved by the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

Despite increased tuition, FAS will likely continue to face a tight budget. In his annual letter to the Faculty, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby said that FAS, like many schools, would be financially “constrained” in the near future.

“The Faculty’s costs continue to rise at a faster rate than our revenues,” he wrote in the letter. “The costs of health care, reflected in dramatically higher fringe benefit rates for all who work in the FAS, rise faster still. To ensure the long-term excellence of the FAS, we will exercise care in spending and make prudent use of our resources.”

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.