President Allison Garrett shares the proposed tuition and fee increase during an open forum last Monday in the Skyline room. If the proposal is approved by the Kansas Board of Regents, it will result in a tuition increase of 2.53 percent and a fee increase of 1.38 percent.
ESU will have a tuition increase of 2.53 percent and a fees increase of 1.38 percent next year, if the Kansas Board of Regents accepts the recommended proposal. This will result in a combined increase of 2.26 percent for students taking 15 credit hours.
Students will also have increased fees in several classes and for other services, such as transcript fees and International Education Orientation, according to the proposed recommendation.
President Allison Garrett presented the official proposal during an open forum last Monday in the Skyline room, where she shared the reasoning behind the increases and answered questions from attendees.
Access to quality education and keeping higher education affordable were among the main reasons for the proposed increase listed by Garrett during the forum.
“We’re trying to strike a balance between affordability and access, but also the quality of programs,” Garrett said.
Resident undergraduate student tuition will increase by $63.65 and resident graduate tuition will increase by $76.92, according to the proposal.
The on campus activity fee will decrease by $7.07 per semester for full time students, from $659 to $651.93. The activity fee for part time students will decrease by $1.97 per credit hour, to $78.98. This decrease is due to an increase in the athletic activity fee and the decrease in student line item fees.
Students enrolled in business courses have a $9 increase per credit hour, in order to help fund operations for the Biz Hornet Center. This results in a total of $12 per credit hour for students taking business courses.
The Biz Hornet Center is available for all School of Business students to use and helps recruit and retain students, offers advising, assists students in getting internships and launching their careers and helps engage business students in activities, according to Ed Bashaw, dean of the School of Business.
“We can’t ask every student in the university to pay for something that they don’t get a benefit from,” Bashaw said. “Every student in the School of Business potentially gets a benefit from the Biz Hornet Center, some benefits they’re not even aware that they have.”
According to Bashaw, they offered two town halls for business students to attend and weigh in on fees. There were 28 students in attendance, and all but one were in favor of an increase of less than $15, Bashaw said.
There will also be new course fees for students who enroll in certain classes, such as Advanced Make-Up Design, TH333, Foundations of Art Therapy, AT708, Scene Painting, TH338 and several Teachers College courses.
By having the university buy course materials in bulk instead of having students individually purchase them, it should be less expensive for students to obtain the materials, Garrett said.
“The university isn’t trying to make money on the students, rather, we’re passing through direct cost increases and in some instances, what we found is that it is less expensive for ESU to buy course materials and pass those on to the students, because we buy in bulk, than for you, the students, to go out individually and buy those course materials,” Garrett said.
Scene painting has an added fee of $100, which will cover the cost of the 4’ x 6’ flat used for by the students for their projects.
Foundations of Art Therapy has an added fee of $90, to cover the cost of art materials used in the course.
The fees increase for Teachers College courses, which include Performance Assessment of Student Teachers, ED 341, and Practicum Experience, EL 819, will go towards paying the stipends provided to the mentor teachers.
International Education students will also have an increase in fees. The student orientation fee will raise to $250, which is a $50 increase, to recover program expenses, according to the proposal.