Increase tuition, and some students may leave Ohio University.
That statement is no longer speculation or fiction, as OU’s Student Senate recently quantified students’ loathing of a tuition increase as fact.
Roughly 10 percent of OU’s student body — a total of 2,143 students — took a survey administered by Senate at the end of last semester, and 40.1 percent of those who responded said there is at least “some chance” they will drop out if OU’s tuition is continually increased by 3.5 percent — the maximum amount the Board of Trustees can raise tuition per year.
The survey also highlighted the fact that 75 percent of students said they knew at least one other student who had to leave OU for financial reasons.
Senators planned to compile the results and present them to OU administrators well before budgetary decisions are made in March, said Student Senate President Zach George.
“Hopefully they’ll see this and realize students are out there hurting,” George said. “I think this has validity … for 10 percent of the school population to say no (to a tuition increase). Having that many students fill out anything is pretty good.”
According to the survey, 43.3 percent of students said they would owe at least $24,000 in student loans upon graduation — with 28.8 percent owing more than $32,000.
The average student debt upon graduation was $26,600 in 2011, according to the Project on Student Debt.
The survey was open to OU’s student population from Oct. 22 until Dec. 15, the end of the fall semester.
It showed two extremes concerning student debt, with 31.3 percent saying they currently owe less than $4,000, while 29.2 percent said they currently owe more than $16,000. More than three-quarters of those who responded said they are already worried about their ability to pay back their student loans.
George plans to present the results to OU President Roderick McDavis this month while sending copies to members of OU’s Board of Trustees.
Senate has also written 201 letters addressed to Ohio Gov. John Kasich and leaders of the Ohio General Assembly and Senate asking that they seriously consider the cost of college when making budgetary decisions.
The letters will be sent out by next week, along with more than 1,100 signatures on a petition from OU students asking the state government to consider the effects of their decisions on the cost of higher education, George said.
“In general, costs for higher education are increasing, and it’s scary,” Interim Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones said. “It’s really a balance between keeping the quality of the institution and fulfilling our academic mission.”
These results come too late for some students, though, including Rebecca Klingensmith, a former freshman who had to drop out of OU at the end of last year because of rising costs.
She could have stayed at the university if OU’s Financial Board had approved her request to live off campus her sophomore year, but she said her request was denied because her inability to pay was “too common.”
“It’s very upsetting ... it’s a lose-lose situation, because you get to go to a place that you want to go, but you’re in debt,” she said.
Klingensmith added she hopes to attend OU again this fall as a junior studying mathematics — and live off campus — after saving money working 30-40 hours a week at a retail store while attending Cleveland State University.
She projects she will be $80,000 in debt after graduation, though her debt currently totals $34,000 after one year with interest.
“I do love OU, and I wouldn’t be fighting to go there if I didn’t love it,” she said.
dd195710@ohiou.edu
