By Bill Robinson
Senior News Writer
RICHMOND —
Tuition for Eastern Kentucky University student will go up in the fall, but the amount probably will not be known until Friday.
That is when the state Council on Post-secondary Education, which sets limits for state-school tuition, will announce the maximum tuition hike it will allow for the coming academic year.
The EKU Board of Regents, which met Monday, voted to impose the maximum increase.
“We’re hearing CPE will allow tuition to go up from 4 to 5 percent,” said Deborah Newsom, EKU vice president for financial affairs to the board.
The regents also voted to increase tuition for graduate students by 4 percent.
They set the tuition for online courses at 130 percent of the rate charged for classroom courses, up from 125 percent. The additional money will be paid as incentives to faculty to develop and teach online courses, said Dr. Janna Vice, interim university provost.
The failure of the legislature to adopt a budget has injected much uncertainty in the financial plans of state institutions, said EKU President Doug Whitlock.
Because both houses of the legislature included a 1.5-percent funding reduction for higher education in the separate budget bills they passed, the university is tentatively planning for that outcome, he said.
The regents voted to raise residence hall fees by an average of 5 percent and food service charges by about 2 percent.
There was no increase in residence hall rates this past year.
The recreation fee for students taking five or more credit hours at the Richmond campus will rise from $30 to $42 a semester, with money from the increase going to support the campus wellness center. Students taking fewer than four credit hours may pay the $12 which will allow them to use the facility.
The regents voted to extend Whitlock’s contract through July 31, 2014.
Whitlock, 66, said he did not “intend to be carried out of my office on a gurney,” but appreciated the additional time to work with the regents toward their shared goals.
The president said he had narrowed the candidates for university provost to two, Vice, the current interim, and Dr. Aaron Thompson, interim vice president for academic affairs for the Kentucky Council on Post-secondary Education.
Thompson is a former associate vice president for academic affairs at EKU. Before being named interim provost, Vice had been associate provost for academic and faculty affairs at EKU since 2007.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
