Kent State Trustees OK 2% Tuition Hike
KENT, Ohio -- The Kent State University Board of Trustees has raised tuition by 2% for undergraduate and graduate students at its eight campuses.
Effective this fall semester, undergraduate tuition for students at the main campus will rise $98 per semester, to $5,006 from $4,908. Graduate tuition will increase by $104 to $5,326 from $5,222. More than half of the new revenues from the hike will be allocated to increases for student scholarships, trustees said.
The hike, which trustees say adheres to a state-mandated limit on full-time, in-state undergraduate tuition increases for the 2014-15 academic year, should leave its tuition in the middle of Ohio’s 13 public universities.
The board also authorized changes in several course fees and other student fees. Some charges were eliminated (for example, 17 fees in the college of nursing) while others were increased. The college of applied engineering, sustainability and technology increased 11 related to its helicopter-training program.
Also approved was a $648.1 million operating budget for the eight-campus system for fiscal 2015, which begins July 1. Among the priorities the trustees addressed in the budget are additional funds for student financial aid, costs following collective bargaining agreements with employees represented by unions, compensation increases for employees not represented by uions, anticipated increases in employees’ health-insurance expense, funds to repair and improve the physical plant and support for library collections and international programs.
As part of a state and institutional commitment to increasing the number of Ohioans with college degrees, trustees approved the Kent State University Complete College Ohio Campus Completion Plan. It is required by the Complete College Ohio Act, passed by the Ohio Legislature a year ago and includes a core recommendation that all public institutions of higher learning develop and effect institution-specific plans.
In other business, trustees awarded outgoing President Lester A. Lefton emeritus status in recognition of his eight years of “extraordinary contributions to Kent State, Northeast Ohio and the field of higher education.” Lefton retires June 30.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email headlines.