Topeka ? Nonresident students would see their tuition increase to help pay for repairs at universities under a proposal being worked on by House Republican leaders.

“Crumbling classrooms need attention, but Kansas families have paid enough,” House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, said Thursday.

Merrick said in-state tuition is already too high at regents universities, but that a nonresident student pays $3,000 less per year than he or she would at peer institutions across the country.

Increasing nonresident tuition rates to the national average would produce $33.5 million per year, he said.

Regents universities have listed about $660 million in needed repairs, but said they could start working on that backlog with an additional $100 million per year.