If approved by the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the plan will begin with the 2016 entering class.
“The Miami Tuition Promise provides the confidence students and their families need in planning their investment in a college education,” Miami President David Hodge said in a statement. “Stability in costs also ensures that scholarships and financial aid will retain their value over a student’s four-year college period.”
In recent years, the University of Dayton and Ohio University have implemented similar plans.
UD says its four-year tuition plan gives students financial certainty and helps bring them back for their second year. Indeed, the university set a retention record this year — retaining 91 percent of its freshmen students from last school year.
To make the plan work, Miami will increase tuition and fees for first-time Ohio students next fall to $14,736, an increase of 2.74 percent. In addition, the school will up room and board costs by 4.9 percent to $12,060. Those costs will stay fixed for four years.
The state budget signed into law earlier this year by Gov. John Kasich froze tuition for in-state students for fiscal year 2016 and 2017. Universities are allowed to elude the tuition freeze if they create an undergraduate tuition guarantee program.
Miami’s four-year guarantee does not include its regional campuses. However, if graduates from an Ohio public community or technical college enters Miami, they will pay the same rate as their cohorts did their freshmen year.
For example, if a student enrolls at Sinclair Community College in 2016 and graduates in 2018, then enrolls at Miami, that student would pay the same rate as students who entered Miami in 2016.
David Creamer, vice president for finance and business services at Miami, said the downside to the initiative is that the university would assume some risk. Creamer said if the state “faced an economic crisis” and decided to cut funding for universities, Miami wouldn’t be able to raise tuition rates for students who were already enrolled.
In addition, he pointed to higher-than-expected inflation as another risk the university would take on if the plan is approved.
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