By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Incoming Bowling Green State University students will pay 3.5 percent more in tuition than students enrolled last year. Under the state’s Falcon Tuition Guarantee, those students will pay $5,806 per semester over the next four years, or longer depending on their program.
In a press release, the university stated, this is amount matches the estimate that prospective students were told they could expect to pay in tuition.
Continuing students who were not covered by last year’s tuition guarantee will pay 2 percent more than they paid last year, $5,401. That amounts to $106.40 more per semester. This is the first tuition increase for those students.
Students who entered in the first tuition guarantee cohort pay $5,610 a semester.
The university’s Board of Trustees Thursday morning approved the tuition increases.
The tuition increases and previous changes in general fees will generate $4.8 million, Stoll said.
The surcharge for out-of-state students will remain at $3,994 a semester. Stoll noted that was increased last year for the first time in a while. The university, she said, could increase that but chooses not to.
Graduate tuition will also remain the same.
In a statement, President Rodney Rogers said: “When considering any tuition or fee changes, our goal is keeping a BGSU education as affordable as possible while ensuring that we have the resources to continue preparing students for meaningful, productive careers and lives. These modest increases will allow us to continue to provide additional scholarships to help more students.”
The hikes, however, are contingent on the state budget going through without significant changes and signed by the governor. The tuition increases were the maximum allowed by the proposed state budget.
Sheri Stoll, the university’s chief financial officer, said that few changes have been made in higher education sections since the budget was proposed by Gov. Mike DeWine. The Senate has added an addition 1 percent to the state share of Instruction pool.
Stoll’s budget was based on the 1-percent increase in the governor’s and house budget.
Again, BGSU is anticipating an increase.
This is because the state has increased the amount it allocates for higher education, but it is also because BGSU has improved it performance in the metrics that the state uses to divvy up that money, Stoll said.
The amount of state funding the university receives is based 50 percent on the number of students who graduate, and 30 percent on the number of courses successfully completed, with a grade of A through D.
Trustee Richard Ross noted that if the pool of money is the same and BGSU is getting more because of better performance, other state universities who don’t match that performance would get less.
The trustees also approved a 2-percent increase in the salary pool for staff. A contract negotiated by the faculty union calls for 3 percent more for the faculty salary pool.
That and an additional $750,000 in scholarships was included in the $304.3 million budget, a 1.2 percent increase, approved by trustees. Salaries and benefits make up $221.7 million. The university expects $304.3 in revenue, also up 1.2 percent.
About half that revenue comes from tuition, $212.2 million with about $80 million coming from the state share of instruction.
In other action, the board re-elected chair Daniel Keller and vice chair Betty Montgomery.
Also, the board welcomed two new student members, undergraduate trustee Remington C. Schneider of Cincinnati, who will serve until May 2021, and graduate student trustee Leah Fishman of Farmingdale, New York, who fills an uncompleted term and will serve until May 2020.
