Two proposed tuition increases are expected to be made official Thursday when the Ohio State Board of Trustees votes at its May meeting.
If passed, tuition would increase 3.5 percent Summer quarter, followed by another 3.5 percent increase Autumn quarter, meaning annual tuition would increase 7 percent, to $8,994, by autumn 2010.
Factoring in other mandatory fees, such as the new Union fee, annual costs would be $9,420 for Ohio residents.
University officials say the increase is necessary because of a decrease in funding from the state.
“The university held off as long as possible in increasing tuition for our students and their families,” said Jim Lynch, director of Media Relations for OSU, in an e-mail to The Lantern.
For the last two years, the state supported a tuition freeze for Ohio public universities. But state budget problems last summer led to cuts in university funding, and state lawmakers compromised by allowing universities to increase tuition 3.5 percent a year over the following two years.
OSU held out on raising tuition most of this year, but because the raises are a “use it or lose it” type of allowance, the university deemed it necessary to raise tuition Summer quarter, which will count as this fiscal year’s allotted raise. The Autumn quarter raise will count toward next year’s raise.
The increases will go to a vote before the board’s Fiscal Affairs Committee, a nine-member group chaired by Jo Ann Davidson. The group also includes chair of the board Les Wexner.
Davidson and Wexner were both members of the three-person subcommittee that unanimously supported the increases proposed by university officials in March.
“All of the members of the board took a leap of faith when we approved a tuition freeze for the third-straight year,” Davidson said at the March meeting. “But the students that started here at the right time will have had no tuition increase for three years.”
The subcommittee, tasked with setting tuition, called the March meeting so students would learn about the probable tuition hike as soon as possible, rather than waiting until this Thursday’s meeting.
The increases were proposed by Bill Shkurti, former chief financial officer for OSU, and Provost Joseph Alutto. The subcommittee unanimously supported the proposal.
Jason Marion, one of the student representatives on the Board of Trustees, is a member of the Fiscal Affairs Committee and will be one of nine who vote on the tuition increases. Marion, though not a part of the subcommittee’s March vote, attended the meeting and voiced his support for the increases.
With three of nine votes seemingly locked up and no voiced disapproval from any of the other board members, it seems likely that the issue will pass Thursday.
But Lynch wasn’t so quick to deem the vote a formality.
“I would never want to speculate on what the Board will do,” he said.
If passed, Lynch said the university would be comfortable with what it sees as a justified and necessary tuition increase.
“We believe that Ohio State is still a tremendous value — when compared to the tuition costs for other universities and their respective academic rankings,” he said. “Even with this increase, Ohio State would still be cheaper than in-state schools such as Miami, Cincinnati, Bowling Green and Ohio University.”
