YSU Vote set on plan to raise tuition

Full-time students would pay the biggest percentage increase.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Trustees of Youngstown State University were to vote today on a tuition increase plan under which full-time students would pay 9.5 percent more beginning next summer.
The proposal was approved 7-2 Tuesday by the finance and facilities committee. Chander Kohli and H.S. Wang were opposed, and student trustees Jeffrey Parks and Matthew Pastier abstained.
"We had made commitments in light of the labor agreements, which we're required to support. I think the administration made a good case for the proposed budget in terms of quality and accreditation," said trustee John Pogue, who voted for the increase.
Kohli said he favors balancing the budget with a tuition increase and spending cuts, but he voted against this plan because he wants to see more spending cuts.
Wang said he voted no because he thinks the spending cuts that accompany the plan are so deep they could adversely affect educational quality. Wang said he'd support a 12-percent to 14-percent tuition increase, with an increase in financial aid availability, if it would be necessary to preserve quality higher education.
Objected to 10% rise
The plan was presented by the administration after trustees balked at YSU President David Sweet's earlier proposal for a 10-percent tuition increase.
It is based on a revised financial forecast calling for $118,743,000 in expenditures and $111,405,000 in revenues and a $7,338,000 shortfall in fiscal 2004, which begins July 1, 2003.
The plan would eliminate $5,172,000 of that shortfall, and the remaining $2,166,000 would come from cuts in university expenditures, including a possible hiring freeze and reductions in telephone expenses, said Terry Ondreyka, vice president for financial affairs.
The latest tuition increase would follow tuition increases of 8.9 percent this fall, 5.5 percent last spring, and 5.1 percent last fall.
Tuition is rising as the state shifts more of the higher education funding burden from itself to the students, Sweet has said, but YSU's is still the lowest among comprehensive public universities in Ohio.