Topeka ? Kansas University is asking for a slightly larger tuition and fee increase for some students to fund larger merit pay increases that school officials say are needed to retain key personnel.

“As the economy continues to rebound, institutions with which we compete for faculty and staff will continue to aggressively recruit our best faculty and staff,” KU says in its tuition request to the Kansas Board of Regents.

Under the proposal, at the Lawrence campus, the undergraduate resident tuition and fee increase would be 4.6 percent, instead of the 4.4 percent that was announced in May. And the non-resident increase would be 4.8 percent instead of the earlier proposed 4.4 percent.

The increases apply to students who transferred to KU after their freshman year and to students who are in their fifth or subsequent undergraduate year at the university.

Those proposed increases would help fund a 2 percent merit salary increase pool for faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Earlier, KU had proposed a 1.75 percent average merit pay hike.

The amended proposal makes no change to the requested 3.4 percent increase for the incoming freshmen class over last year’s freshmen class.

At KU, freshmen enter a compact, meaning that they will have the same tuition rate for four years.

Because of this compact system, two-thirds of returning KU undergraduates will have no tuition increase.

The regents will consider the tuition proposals later this month.

The amended tuition proposal was brought up during a meeting Thursday of the regents’ Fiscal Affairs and Audit Committee.

In other business, the committee forwarded to the full regents a request from the KU School of Business to increase the size of the planned new business school building to accommodate projected growth. Under the proposal, the $65.7 million price tag would increase to $72.5 million.