Ohio University administrators are working to ensure that students will know from the moment they enroll how much tuition they will be paying.
After presenting the foundations of the guaranteed-tuition model to the House Finance Subcommittee on Higher Education on Feb. 26, OU President Roderick McDavis, Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding are preparing an expanded guaranteed-tuition model for consideration at the Board of Trustees meeting in April.
The model would guarantee that each incoming class would pay the same tuition rate for its next four years, though the next incoming class might pay a different rate.
The state legislature could approve the model by June 30, but it would not be put into effect at OU until Fall Semester 2014 or 2015, said John Day, associate provost for Academic Budget and Planning.
To prepare for the extended plan, Benoit and Golding have been presenting the guaranteed-tuition model to Student and Faculty senates at OU, as well as trustees and other universities in the state.
“Other presidents of public universities have heard about the idea, and it’s been very well-received,” McDavis said at the March 11 Faculty Senate meeting.
In order to provide a stable guaranteed-tuition rate, OU will look at the historical average of inflation, which is currently about 3 percent, add that to each year’s projected cost, and divide the total by four years to create a flat rate for four years, Day said.
In this way, the tuition for the first guaranteed-tuition freshman class would be raised by an estimate of 5.9 percent, Day said.
After the trustees review the model, it will have to be passed by both Ohio’s House of Representatives and Senate in order to be signed by the governor, said Eric Burchard, director of government relations.
There are some risks to projecting inflation rates for years in advance. If inflation rates rise over what was projected, the university will be scrounging for money, Day said. If the inflation rates are lower than projected, students will be paying more than they would on differential tuition, he added.
“I don’t think that (students) are cognizant of the fact that they’re paying for four separate tuition increases,” said Jared Henderson, Honors Tutorial College student senator and a senior studying philosophy.
In order to adjust for the initial tuition growth, Benoit assigned a task force to evaluate scholarships and use them more effectively for students and recruitment, regardless of whether guaranteed tuition is passed.
In the eight months that administrators had been discussing tuition models, they chose guaranteed tuition in favor of an extended, differential tuition model, Day said.
OU is currently using a differential tuition model because of the differences between in-state and out-of-state tuitions. At March 15’s Budget Planning Council meeting, the council analyzed two scenarios on the current model of a tuition increase of either 1.6 or 2 percent for Fall Semester 2013.
While expanded differential tuition would bring money in to the university, it would not save students as much money as the guaranteed rate, Day said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
