The Ball State Board of Trustees Monday approved a 4.9 percent tuition increase for in-state students for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 academic years, and a 6 percent increase for out-of-state students for both years.
The increase will bring tuition for 2007-08 in-state students to $3,336 per semester, a $156 increase, and tuition for 2007-08 out-of-state students to $8,870 per semester, a $502 increase.
The in-state increase is less than the average national tuition increase of 5.8 percent and is consistent with past rises in Ball State tuition, Randy Howard, associate vice president of finance, said.
Ball State hopes to offset some of the increased tuition by granting more financial aid, he said.
"Every year, we've been able to raise the amount of need-based aid and merit-based aid, and we hope that trend continues in the future," he said. Three quarters of Ball State students do not pay the "sticker price" of tuition because they receive aid, he said.
Much of the money Ball State will gain through increased tuition will be used to attract and retain quality employees, Howard said.
Trustees voted to increase employee pay 4 percent in order to help achieve this goal. Employee pay has increased by more than twice as much in the past two years as it did during the 2005-06 academic year. Howard said employee pay increases are returning to a normal rate after being low in recent years, saying that the pay increase was 5.5 percent in 1997.
"Our goal is to attract and maintain the best and brightest faculty and staff members and to continue to attract great students," he said.
Board members also approved a 6 percent increase in student health insurance fees for individual students. The plan currently covers 703 students, Bill McCune, associate vice president of Business Services, said.
The individual student insurance fee will increase from $736 in 2006-07 to $780 in 2007-08. Ball State also offers a student and spouse and student and children insurance plans, which will increase from $2,411 to $2,556, and a student and family insurance plan, which will increase from $4,177 to $4,428.
Student insurance claim costs have exceeded fees for seven of the last nine years, McCune said, so he was relieved the fee did not increase more.
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