Ohio University's in-state tuition is the ninth most expensive in the nation for the 2005-2006 school year, according to a USA Today article.
Double-digit hikes are down appeared on www.usatoday.com on Oct. 4, and included a 50-state survey of 67 flagship public universities. The 10 most expensive schools in its national survey have in-state tuitions greater than $8,000 and OU ranked ninth, with in-state tuition costing $8,235 this school year, according to the article.
A central reason for OU's ranking in the poll involves its reliance upon state-appropriated funds, Provost Kathy Krendl said.
OU is dependent on tuition and state subsidies for revenue
Krendl said, adding that the university's total budget was 32 percent tuition and 29 percent state-appropriated subsidies during the 2002-03 school year.
State support for higher education consistently has decreased since 2001. Last school year, state support for OU decreased by $1,611 per student while tuition rose 6 percent this year, according to OU's Office of Institutional Research.
Primary and secondary education, however, continue to receive greater state support. Higher education receives about 10 percent of the state's budget while primary and secondary education receive about 30 percent, said Neal McNally, assistant director for budget and resource planning for the Ohio Board of Regents.
A federal government mandate requires states to pay a certain amount for each K-12 pupil, so those levels of education receive additional funding first, he said.
McNally said two prime factors in the decline of state support for universities are the U.S.'s slow economy and state funding priorities, which place primary and secondary education and Medicaid funding above higher education.
The actual amount OU receives from the state has not decreased in recent years, but OU's financial needs have. Increasing enrollment at OU and inflation result in less state support for the university, McNally said.
Tuition increases help make up those differences (when state subsidies decrease) Krendl said.
Schools with lower in-state tuition often rely on a smaller percentage of tuition and state appropriations, but endowments and greater percentages of sales and services of auxiliaries and hospitals for their revenue, Krendl said.
For example, during the 2002-03 school year, in-state tuition for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was $4,269, less than half of OU's tuition that year. At that time, 9 percent of tuition and 23 percent of state appropriations contributed to UNC's revenue, while sales provided 23 percent (almost twice the sales of OU). Additionally, UNC received more than $1 million in endowments that year while OU received $159,470,000, according to information from the Office of Institutional Research.
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