OU President David L. Boren and eight other college presidents said Friday they will freeze tuition and fees for the next school year if the legislature appropriates $80.4 million in new funding for higher education.

The proposal came after years of low or nonexistent levels of new higher education funding, which university presidents say has forced them to raise tuition and fees year after year.

Last year, the legislature didn’t appropriate any new funds to higher education. Tuition and fees at OU went up by 9.9 percent the following semester.

Boren said he and Regents Chancellor Glen Johnson began working on the plan at the end of the last legislative session. Their goal was to determine how much the entire state higher education system needed to cover an increase in operating costs and other necessary expenses without raising tuition or fees.

Their request for $80.4 million in new funding is part of an overall appropriation request of $1.13 billion, an 8.35 percent increase over 2009’s budget.

State officials said the chances of the request being fulfilled by the legislature are uncertain.

It comes in the midst of a national recession that could impact state revenues in the future.

Although the nation’s economic crisis hasn’t hit the Sooner state as hard as it has other places, energy prices are falling, and some are worried that higher-than-expected revenue collections of the first quarter may give way to declining revenues as the year progresses.

The state will not receive its first revenue estimate until December, according to Paul Sund, spokesman for Gov. Brad Henry.

“Gov. Henry is certainly supportive of any effort to head off a tuition hike,” Sund wrote in an e-mail. “Until we receive a concrete revenue forecast, it is difficult to say whether or not the regents’ proposal is feasible.”

Regents spokesman Ben Hardcastle said the regents think their proposal “is an appropriate request.”

“We will work with the governor and the legislature on this,” he said. “And we believe we’ll get a fair hearing.”