“This decision is one of the most difficult decisions we make all year,” said David Shade, chairman of the finance committee of the university’s board of trustees. “But we are still rising more slowly than elsewhere in the nation.”
Tuition for Ohio resident undergraduates on the Oxford campus will rise from $12,625 to $13,067. Out of state undergraduate tuition will rise 3 percent, from $27,797 to $28,631.
Tuition for first- and second-year Ohio resident students on the Hamilton and Middletown campuses will go up from $4,757 to $4,922. Annual tuition for upper division students will increase from $7,228 to $7,481.
According to information from Treasurer David Creamer, resident tuition at Miami has risen at a slower rate than other universities.
Ohio University’s proposed 2012-13 tuition is $10,285, but that represents a 17.9 percent increase since 2006-07, while Miami’s tuition has risen 14.2 percent in the same time period.
Also in the same time period, private universities have had higher increases, with University of Dayton raising tuition 39.3 percent to a proposed $33,400 for 2012-13 and Xavier University raising tuition 40.2 percent to $32,070 for next year.
Tuition, however, is only one area in which Miami students will be digging deeper in their pockets next school year as the university has adopted a set of nearly 50 new fees and fines, and raising the cost of nearly 80 fees and fines while decreasing or eliminated 24 others.
Creamer said this makes the third tuition increase in six years as the university “tries to make education as affordable as possible” while making significant budget cuts in light of a 21 percent reduction of state funding.
“We have had total budget reductions of $40 million since 2008,” he said, “and have planned another $17 million in the next three years.”
But trustee Harry T. Wilks, who voted against the tuition increase, wonders if that’s enough, likening the boom in student loans to the housing bubble that “led us to a recession that was the second worst we’ve ever had,” and called for an independent investigation into university finances.
“I think Miami ought to have a committee appointed to study whether or not we can find some expenses we can legitimately cut,” he said, adding that the university should go on record as being opposed to the proliferation of student loans that could cause graduates financial trouble in later years.
“Maybe they won’t find anything (more to cut)... but we would get the news out that Miami isn’t just going to follow the leader and raise tuition every time the subject comes up,” Wilks said. “We should be on the record that we don’t want to raise tuition.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
About the Author