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Freeze continues for undergrad tuition at YSU; other fees raised
By Harold Gwin
This will be the third year that in-state tuition has been stable.
YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University didn’t have to raise undergraduate tuition to balance a $150.1 million general fund budget for 2009-10, but some other fees as well as graduate-student tuition are going up.
The university’s board of trustees approved the spending plan and related tuition and fee schedules Friday.
The new budget reflects a 1.4 percent increase over this year’s spending.
Helping to fund that increase is an anticipated $400,000 in new revenue resulting from a 6 percent increase in graduate student tuition and $200,000 in revenue from a new fee imposed on junior and senior students attending the Bitonte College of Health and Human Services.
The fee amounts to $6.50 per credit hour and will be used to defray the cost of purchasing instructional equipment for health-care programs in which those students are enrolled.
The state had been supplying the money for those purchases in the past, but that revenue stream is drying up.
Room and board costs for the nearly 1,300 students living on campus will go up slightly more than 4 percent, and the single- room surcharge will increase as well.
What won’t change is in-state undergraduate tuition, which will be frozen for the third consecutive year. Also, trustees earlier this year approved the creation of the Western Pennsylvania Advantage tuition program for this fall, giving a cost break to out-of-state students living in eight Western Pennsylvania counties.
The tuition they pay was lowered to just $200 more per year than in-state students pay, and will remain at that level. In-state students pay $6,721 annually.
That effort appears to have already been successful, said David C. Sweet, YSU president. Response has been beyond expectations, he said, noting that applications from the targeted area are running 16 percent ahead of last year.
The trustees’ finance and facilities committee was scheduled to vote on the budget June 4, but a question of possible funding responsibilities for the Youngstown Early College program, a joint effort by YSU and the Youngstown City School District, caused concern.
The program on the YSU campus provides selected city high school students with an opportunity to attend college classes while earning their high school diplomas.
The arrangement called for YSU to pick up 49 percent of their tuition cost, and the city schools were to cover the remaining 51 percent.
The program is four years old, and neither the university nor school district has had to pay any tuition cost so far. The state has been picking that up with grant funds, amounting to some $600,000 a year.
Uncertainties with the state biennial budget now being prepared in Columbus have indicated the two partners might have to pick up some or all of that tuition bill next school year.
Some financial and facilities committee members were reluctant to vote on the budget until they knew how that liability would be covered.
The issue was resolved Friday with a decision to take YSU’s share of the tuition, up to $350,000 if needed, from a $600,000 scholarship reserve, leaving $250,000 in that account for any other scholarship contingencies.
gwin@vindy.com
BUDGET CHANGES: Tuition and fees
Breakdown of tuition and room and board costs in the 2009-10 YSU general fund budget:
In-state undergraduate tuition: Frozen at $6,721 annually.
Western Pennsylvania Advantage undergraduate tuition: Reduced from $9,413 to $6,921 annually.
Nonregional undergraduate tuition: Frozen at $12,393 annually.
In-state graduate tuition: Up $524 to $9,251 annually.
Nonresident graduate tuition: Up $524 to $9,451 annually.
Room and board: Up $310 to $7,400 annually.
Single-room surcharge: Up $20 to $860 annually.
Source: Youngstown State University