Northern Kentucky University Board of Regents voted May 5 for the university to stop providing students who take 17 or more credit hours with a 50 percent discount as well as raise tuition by nearly 5 percent for resident undergraduate students starting fall 2010.
The decision to eliminate the 50 percent discount on credit hours 17 and above for undergraduate students comes after the Student Government Association defeated a resolution at their April 26 meeting that would have effectively endorsed elimination of the discount on behalf of the student body. The resolution was narrowly defeated with nine yea’s, 10 nay’s and five members abstaining from the vote.
Votruba said he had not yet received the resolution but was aware of the decision by SGA.
Keith Kaseke, outgoing student regent and SGA president, said he was in support of the decision to remove the discount.
‘I understand where our university would be without this,’ Kaseke said.
Ken Kline, budget director at NKU, said that roughly 850 students enrolled in 17 or more hours according to last fall’s enrollment data.
The 4.95 percent tuition increase, according to a presentation given to the BOR, is within the Council on Postsecondary Education’s tuition cap of 5 percent for the 2010 academic year. This means resident undergraduate students will see a $14 per credit hour increase in their tuition. Nonresident students will see their tuition increase also. Currently NKU is in a process to phase in a CPE mandate that nonresident rates be at least 2 percent of the resident rate. NKU’s nonresident rate for next year is proposed to be 1.95 percent of the resident rate.
CPE predicated the tuition caps with the assumption that state appropriated funding will be about the same as in the current House and Senate budget bill. If the Kentucky Legislature decreases the amounts considerably from what is in the bill now, CPE reserved the right to adjust tuition caps.
A news release on the CPE’s website dated April 23 called the tuition caps ‘moderate.’
Votruba said to the BOR that the days of aggressive 10 and 12 percent tuition increases are gone.
‘The first part of the decade we were very aggressive with tuition’hellip;those days are gone forever-well-what’s forever? Probably my forever,’ Votruba said.
The increase in tuition rates will create approximately $119 million in revenue as stated in Votruba’s recommendation to the BOR.
The next step for the university is to present the BOR approved tuition rates to the CPE at the University of Louisville on May 21.
Story by Vern Hockney
