Tuition rises, again
By Adrian Kendrick
Feature Editor
The University of Indianapolis Administration and Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees has decided to raise tuition and room and board rates for the 2008-09 school year.
Tuition will be $20,320 and room and board will be $7,790, with the 19 meal-plan option, which is a total of $28,110 for the year. This is an increase of 3.72 percent from last year’s rates.
Last year, tuition was $19,540 with a room and board cost of $7,560 with the 19 meal-plan option.
“The Administration and the Board of Trustees really made an attempt to keep the tuition and room and board as minimal as we could,” said Mark Weigand, vice president of enrollment and student affairs.
According to UIndy President Beverley Pitts, a number of factors influenced the tuition increase. Those factors included the predicted 15 percent higher electric bill, a $220,000 increase for computer software licenses and a three percent increase for Polk Food Service’s food.
Another expense involved faculty pay raises. According to Pitts, the university wants to make sure faculty have adequate pay increases. Also, the university made set increases needed to meet the budget. Pitts said that the increase is essentially the smallest increase that the university could do.
“We have to pay the utility bills,” Weigand said. “We can’t turn the heat off. Those kinds of things we have no control over, and those [expenses] went up faster than we would have liked to see.”
According to Weigand, even though the university would prefer not to increase tuition, the increase was lower than most private schools in Indiana.
For example, total cost at Wabash College is $35,550. Butler University costs $35,541, University of Evansville costs $35,572, and University of Notre Dame costs $49,030.
“The increase has put us in good shape compared to the other private universities,” Weigand said. “If you look over the past 10 years, we have done a better job of maintaining cost than some of the other private universities. We hope with the moderate increase likely being lower than our competition, this may actually be a positive for the Admission recruitment efforts.”
According to Director of Financial Aid Linda Handy, an extensive amount of financial aid is being provided to students to help them with the cost of tuition.
“We have a large number of first-generation students, which puts a strain on the university to provide aid because they are in need. We have a wide range of students on campus, from very low-income families to very high-income families,” Handy said. “That need [for financial aid] will not go away. And as tuition goes up, that need will become greater.”
According to Handy, the university is looking at ways to raise money and shift things to help students with financial need.
“We have this year gone back and re-examined the amounts the university is giving on the merit scholarships and made increases for the new class coming in,” Handy said. “We’re also in the process of looking at and evaluating the unmet need of our students. That’s more of the problem than how much aid we are providing—what need we cannot meet with existing funds.”
The state awards have been going up modestly each year, Handy said. This year the Pell Grant was increased to a $4,731 maximum, a $421 increase, for students who qualify for financial aid.
According to Pitts, students can be more mindful of how they use campus resources and help a little in lowering the university’s expenses.
“Certainly every time we save money that’s money we can use somewhere else,” Pitts said. “Shutting off the lights cannot solve the problem, but every little bit helps. Just being more careful of how we use our resources, such as paper, helps. Every single resource at this university needs to be paid for, and tuition is how [it’s paid for].”
According to Weigand, Indianapolis Student Government President Kevin Dunleavy is working with ISG on a “Going Green” proposal. The students recognize that it is in their best interest to conserve as much electricity as possible and to find ways to conserve heat and other sources of energy, said Weigand.
“That could have an impact on keeping our expenses more stable. So not only does it benefit our environment, but green proposals can also benefit us economically,” Weigand said. “We will work with the ISG leadership and see what proposals they make, and I believe that ISG is already hard at work on this.”
Pitts said that she wanted to assure students that the Schwitzer expansion project had absolutely nothing to do with the tuition increase.
“The money to pay for the Schwitzer building is going to be bonded, which means we are going to borrow the money to pay back over 30 years. It has no impact on the operating budget of the university,” Pitts said. “It does not come out of tuition, and I think that [it] is important for students to know that.”
Weigand said he wanted students to know that the university is aware of the adjustments students may have to make because of the tuition increase.
“We know paying for college is a major investment,” Weigand said. “We are really committed to working with students on an individual basis, if need be, to make college as affordable as possible.”
