Tuition hikes coming

Tony Watt
News Reporter

SIUE students will be paying a little extra in tuition over the next three years.

In the 2000-2001 school year, SIUE will charge $30 for every credit hour above a full-time class load of 12 hours.

In the minutes of the May 13 meeting of the board of trustees, it states that the fee will increase to $50 in 2002, and to $70 in 2003.

Daniel Corbett, budget director for SIUE, said the university will assess the impact of the fee increases on students in 2002.

"Tentatively it is set to be $70 in 2003," he said. "We are going to stop and take a hard look at it when it reaches $50. It might stop at $50 or it might not."

Originally the university did not charge for credit hours 13 through 18 and credit hours 19 and above cost the same as the full time load.

Corbett said the new price scale would be cheaper for students taking more than 18 hours.

The board also determined the tuition prices for the next four years based on the U.S. Consumer Price Index.

The index measures the changes in retail prices and is issued monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an agency of the Labor Department.

According to the board minutes, a student or parents should know the cost of a four-year college education at SIUE based on the projected tuition prices.

Tuition will increase by 3 percent each year. In 2001, resident undergraduate students will pay $2,388 yearly if they take 15 credit hours a semester.

Yearly resident graduate rates in 2001 will be $2,559 for 12 credit hours a semester.

"The graduate tuition is slightly higher because we intend the graduate students to pay 25 percent of their instructional cost," Corbett said. "The student-teacher ratio is much better."

The board minutes stated that nonresident rates will be twice that of the rates for Illinois residents.

"One of the goals of SIU is affordability," Corbett said. "One of the ways to measure affordability is to compare us to other public universities a student might go to. When you look, you'll find that even with our tuition plan, we cost significantly less than other Illinois public universities."