The university has proposed tuition rates for the 2007-08 school year that would include a 14.7 percent increase for continuing students enrolled before fall 2004.
The proposed tuition hike comes one year after increasing tuition 7.9 percent for continuing students and 9.4 percent for incoming students.
For the incoming freshman class, the proposed increase would be 11.4 percent more than this year’s freshman class is paying. President Salme Steinberg’s report to the Board of Trustees cites the fiscal climate in Illinois as the culprit for the increases. State funding to NEIU has fallen 11.8 percent over the past five years, according to the president’s report.
When measured from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2007, state funds granted to NEIU actually increased 2.4 percent over that time, while tuition increased over 19 percent in the same period. During this time period, however, fiscal demands from the state increased, and NEIU now has increased costs in a variety of areas including health care, pensions and compensation.
Vice President of Finance and Administration Mark Wilcockson, who helps formulate the school’s budget and oversees the process by which tuition increases are made, said that the university would be presenting the increase to the Student Government Association (SGA) at the SGA’s Thursday, Dec. 7 meeting.
As is the custom in recent years, Wilcockson, Provost Lawrence Frank and Vice President of Student Affairs Melvin Terrell will attend the SGA meeting to present the increase.
The two previous increases in tuition for continuing students were 9.6 percent for the 2006 school year and 7.9 percent for the 2007 school year. The highest previous increase in the preceding 10 years was 5.3 percent for the 2004 school year.
Also noted in the President’s Report to the Board of Trustees, the three administrators will “meet with Student Government, discuss the proposed tuition and fee plan and work with Student Government to facilitate a broad discussion of the issues.”
Steinberg added that she will present a set of tuition and fee recommendations to the Board for approval at their next February meeting.
In 2004 and 2005 when tuition increases were shared with the SGA prior to Board of Trustees approval, there was no difference in the initial proposed increase and the final tuition increase after discussion with students.
Fees could increase possibly as much as 18.1 percent under the proposal detailed in the President’s report, which also proposes that resident graduate tuition is raised by 25 percent from $160 per credit hour to $200 per credit hour, an increase that is approximately seven times the rate of inflation.
Continuing students enrolled before fall 2004 will pay 26 percent more in tuition than students who enrolled in fall 2004 under the Truth In Tuition Act, which guarantees a four-year tuition rate at all public universities in Illinois.
“It was artificially low,” Wilcockson said of the fall 2004 tuition rate, which has been lower than continuing undergrads for three consecutive years. “The students of fall 2004 got a great deal.”
With the proposed tuition rate for incoming students in fall 2007 set at $195 per credit hour, tuition at NEIU will have doubled between the fiscal years of 2001 and 2008, with tuition in 2001 at $97.50 per credit hour and the proposed fiscal year 2008 tuition for new students exactly twice that.
Wilcockson also confirmed that the proposed increases were an “action item” for the next board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007.