Board to vote on 6% tuition raise

Student leaders said they were warned in September that tuition would rise to cover staff pay raises.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University is looking at a 6 percent increase in tuition next fall.
The Finance and Facilities Committee of the YSU Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote on a resolution approving the increase at a meeting Thursday. The proposal also includes a 3.3 percent room and board increase.
A recommendation made by the committee would go to the full board for consideration at its Dec. 14 meeting.
If approved, it would be the university's ninth consecutive annual tuition increase.
A proposed rise in tuition shouldn't have come as a surprise. YSU student leaders said they were told by administration officials in September that further annual tuition increases would be needed to pay for employee wage increases in new three-year contracts negotiated in August.
Raises in contracts
YSU's 380 faculty members are getting annual increases of 3 percent this year and 3.5 percent in the second and third years of their contract. The university's 400-member Association of Classified Employees is getting 3 percent annual increases in each of the first two years and 3.25 percent in the third year of their agreement.
Under the proposal, annual tuition (which includes an instructional fee, a general fee and a technology fee) for undergraduate Ohio residents would rise by $380 to $6,713, while regional nonresident undergraduates would see tuition rise by $524 to $9,329.
Nonregional, nonresident undergraduate tuition would rise by $692 to $12,233.
Graduate students would see a 6 percent increase as well. For Ohio residents, graduate tuition would increase by $468 to $8,233 a year. Regional nonresident graduate students would see their cost rise by $636 to $11,281, and nonregional nonresidents would have to pay an additional $804 for a total of $14,113.
Room and board charges are scheduled to rise by $210 to $6,490.
Revenue source
The tuition increases are expected to generate an additional $3.8 million in revenue for the university, based on a projected fall 2006 full-time equivalent enrollment of 10,220 students.
That's 112 fewer full-time equivalents than are enrolled right now, though the university isn't actually predicting an enrollment decrease but is being conservative for budgeting purposes.
YSU is projecting an $800,000 drop in state aid next school year, a decline of about 2 percent. A continual decline in state aid has been cited by the university in the past as one reason tuition rates keep rising.