UI proposes 6 percent tuition increase

Keith Ickes, University of Idaho executive director of planning and budget, said UI will ask the Idaho State Board of Education for a 5.9 percent increase to undergraduate in state tuition during an open forum concerning tuition increases Thursday. This will effect the 2013-2014 academic year and is lower than the previous year’s tuition increase of 6.1 percent.

As part of the proposal, out-of-state undergraduate students would see a tuition increase of 3.2 percent and graduate students would see an increase of $112. Whether or not the tuition increase happens will depend on if the board approves the proposal on April 17.

Since Idaho bundles tuition and student fees together, the proposed tuition increase features an increase of $7.88 for student activity fees. The increase in student fees was decided by the Student Fee Committee that heard proposals from different groups to decide which groups would receive which funds and how much.

“We only had about six proposals for an increase for their student activity fee and we thought that the most applicable ones that we wanted to fund was the Counseling and Testing Center and Athletics and that is where the fees will be going to if we get granted, as Keith pointed out, at least four percent (increase) in tuition,” said ASUI President Hannah Davis.

The tuition increases could give UI $3.8 million of increased revenue. With other revenue sources this will raise an estimated $6.1 million for the university. This falls short of the $9.2 million needed in funding. UI makes up the difference by not paying a group of costs that totals $3.5 million, collectively referred to as MCO.

“Now what do we do, we do what we’ve been doing for the last decade. We don’t fund that (MCO costs),” Ickes said. “So once again, we don’t pay for inflation, we don’t cover utilities and maintenance and ongoing repairs and replacements. Part of that includes some increase in medical benefits because medical benefits are going up because that is one of the pieces of the pie. We will pay for the medical benefits because we have to.”

Students with questions about the fee increase or who would like to submit comments on the initial notice of tuition changes can email [email protected]. Comments received will be printed and submitted to the review board prior to the April 17 meeting.

Aleya Ericson can be reached at [email protected]

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