RICHMOND —
Eastern Kentucky Univer-sity expects the state’s Council on Post-secondary Education to allow regional universities to raise in-state tuition by 5 percent for the coming academic year, according to EKU President Doug Whitlock.
On Monday, the EKU regents voted to take the maximum the council will allow and delegated its academic affairs committee to impose the increase after the council’s Thursday meeting.
All of the board members present, except student regent Caleb Armbrust, voted in favor of the increase.
The university has anticipated the 5-percent tuition hike in its budget planning for the coming fiscal year, Whitlock said.
In-state tuition also went up 5 percent last year.
Whitlock said he expects the CPE to allow the state’s two research institutions to raise their tuition by 6 percent, with the community and technical college system being granted a 4-percent increase.
The Family Foundation of Kentucky on Monday announced it would ask the state legislature next year to put a moratorium on tuition increases at the state universities.
The move was prompted by the University of Louisville’s announcement last week that it intends to raise its tuition by an amount almost three times the current rate of inflation, the foundation’s spokesperson, Martin Cothran, stated in a news release.
“People used to talk about ‘working your way through college,’” Cothran said. “Now they talk about working their way out of their college debt. The cost of a college education in Kentucky is outstripping the ability of families to pay for it. This has to stop.”
EKU expects to derive 57.4 percent of its revenue this year from student tuition, Deborah Newsom, the university’s vice president for finance, told the board. State appropriations will account for 36.4 percent of the university’s income with the remaining 6.2 percent coming from grants, contracts and other sources.
Since 2005, EKU has derived more of its revenue from tuition and fees than from state appropriations, according to a graph that Newsom distributed at the meeting.
The board also voted to raise meal-plan rates for residential students by 3.75 percent. Last year, the meal plan rate went up 2 percent.
The regents endorsed a partnership between EKU and Madison County Schools to provide a “Middle College” opportunity to high school students in the district. The program targets high school students who are capable of success at the high school and college level, but do not reach their potential because of barriers in their lives and are at risk of dropping out.
This would be the first such partnership in Kentucky, said Dr. Janna Vice, EKU provost.
If successful, she said the program could be offered at EKU’s regional campuses, where host counties already have expressed interest in seeing it started.
The board approved awarding honorary degrees to the speakers for the three May 7 commencement exercises.
They include Dr. Bonnie Gray, former head of the EKU honors program; Ralph Hacker, Richmond native and current resident who formerly was the broadcast voice of University of Kentucky football and men’s basketball; and Chunbo Li, head of a Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer who has sent several of his top employees to EKU for graduate study in business.
Li’s niece, an EKU grad, will interpret as he speaks, Whitlock said. Li, who helped represent China at the 2009 summit of the world’s eighth largest national economies, has expressed interest in having some of his employees study chemistry and industrial safety at EKU, the president said.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
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Tuition at Eastern Kentucky University has steadily increased in recent years, as it has in most schools around the state. The Family Foundation of Kentucky on Monday announced it would ask the state legislature next year to put a moratorium on tuition increases at the state universities. Chris Radcliffe
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