COLUMBIA, MO. • The University of Missouri Board of Curators on Thursday began grappling with last week's unexpected cut in state higher education spending.

The move by Gov. Jay Nixon to restore a 7 percent cut, instead of the 5.5 percent cut planned by lawmakers, from the state's colleges and universities hit every state school.

But Nixon specifically targeted MU with an 8.1 percent cut in response to the system's decision to raise tuition higher than his requested 5 percent. Curators voted earlier in the year on a 5.5 percent hike.

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Nixon's extra cut leaves the system with a $4.4 million hole in its budget and an array of unpleasant budget-balancing strategies.

Among the options presented by Nikki Krawitz, the systems vice president for finance:

• Capping enrollment. More of a long-term solution and one that could possibly see a cap on in-state students, but not on more lucrative out-of-state students, who generally pay much higher rates.

• Cut institutional financial aid. This would be a backtracking of this year's pledge to set aside 20 percent of the recent tuition increase for financial aid.

• Student surcharge. Students would pay an additional fee.

It's unclear whether any of the options will actually be put into place, with curators expressing hope that Nixon might reconsider his position on the MU cuts. Regardless, system officials say they are worried about their inability to offset what appears to be a steady erosion of state financial support.

"Nobody wants to do any of these things," said Warren Erdman, curators chairman. "It's starting to get kind of ugly. And these are the sorts of things you have to think about."

The $2.7 billion budget currently under consideration does include a 2 percent pool for merit raises for faculty and staff, for whom salaries have been essentially frozen in recent years.

Finding money for those raises would force the system to cut even further from its maintenance and repair operations. The system is supposed to be spending more than $70 million a year in that area but has been forced to cut that in half.

"Are we going to invest on physical facilities or are we going to invest in people? I think we make the right choice, but it does have an impact," Krawitz said.