Thursday, March 27, 2008 4:08 PM CDT
U of I hikes tuition; year at Champaign-Urbana tops $20,000
By the Associated Press
URBANA AP) — The cost of a year of typical undergraduate study at the University of Illinois’ Champaign-Urbana campus will top $20,000 next year for the first time under new rates set Wednesday.
Tuition, fees and other room and board at the university’s Chicago and Springfield campuses will jump, too.
University trustees raised tuition on all three campuses Wednesday after a recommendation by university President Joseph White. The university needs the money to maintain academic quality and to deal with the rising cost of maintaining campuses, he said.
“In a challenging economy, we must retain and attract top faculty in a competitive academic marketplace,” White said. “We must also maintain our physical infrastructure that the citizens of Illinois have invested in for well over a century.”
An incoming, in-state freshman on the flagship Champaign-Urbana campus will pay $20,428 in tuition, fees and room and board, an 8 percent increase over this year’s $18,900.
At the university’s Chicago campus, a year of study will cost freshmen $19,760, a 9.2 percent increase, starting next fall. And on the Springfield campus, in-state tuition for freshman will be $17,920 a year. The university gets about $1.1 billion a year from the state, and uses tuition, fees and other sources for the rest of its $3.9 billion budget.
Before Wednesday’s increases, the Champaign-Urbana campus was already the second most-expensive Big Ten university, cheaper than only Penn State, according to the Association of American Universities Data Exchange.
The group tracks tuition and fees — but not housing costs — on American campuses, and during the current school year found Penn State’s $12,844 a year more expensive than the $11,130 Illinois currently charges. The cheapest Big Ten school is Iowa, which charges $6,293 a year in tuition in fees.
Meghan Montemurro, 20, a junior at Champaign-Urbana, said she understands costs are going up, but college is becoming a financial burden.
“Looking at places like Lincoln Hall, there’s definitely buildings that need to be taken care of,” she said, referring to a historic building in Urbana that the university said needs millions of dollars of repair work.
But at some point rising costs could drive students to cheaper schools, she said.
“I know I can afford it without having to go into severe debt after I graduate,” Montemurro said.
Also Wednesday, trustees gave the university’s online Global Campus the authority to negotiate group tuition discounts of up to 15 percent with companies or other organizations enrolling multiple students.
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Tom Andres wrote on Mar 28, 2008 4:02 PM: