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Tuition Increases At More Than Half Of Ohio’s State-Funded Universities
By: Amy Hansen | StateImpact Ohio
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Editor's note: Ohio University administration announced a plan to recommend raising tuition 1.5 percent for the 2014-15 academic year. The school's Board of Trustees will vote on the matter at its June meetings.
After approving a 2 percent tuition increase last week, The University of Akron became the latest state school to raise prices for the upcoming academic year.
Wright State University, The University of Cincinnati, and Shawnee State University have also approved bumping up tuition, while four additional schools have proposed doing so, according to a Columbus Dispatch report.
Under state law, Ohio-funded schools can raise their tuition up to 2 percent or $188 per year, whichever amount is higher.
Ohio Board of Regents’ Communications Director Jeff Robinson says each university has its own reasons for wanting to raise tuition charges, but for some, fluctuating enrollment since the recession has posed budget concerns.
“We saw enrollment numbers going up as more people were going back to school to get that education to place them back in the workforce," Robinson said. "And then as we started coming out of that recession enrollment went down a little bit, which is not unusual, but that does affect budget numbers at the schools so they’re looking at ways that they can meet those expenses that they have and that sometimes falls to the tuition side of things.”
So far, Bowling Green State University is the only school to announce a plan to freeze tuition costs.
Five state universities have yet to make their tuition recommendations.