ISU Boosts New Student Tuition

Housing, meal plans also increased

Illinois State University students starting school next fall will pay tuition that's 9 percent higher than that charged this year's new students.

ISU trustees on Friday raised tuition to $301 a credit hour on Friday. The cost for a 15-hour semester class load would be $4,515. State law guarantees students pay the same rate for their first four years of school.

Trustees also raised housing rates by 3.2 percent. A dorm room will now cost from $4,326 to $7,798. The costs of meal plans were raised 3.2 percent to from $678 to $4,110.

"This isn't a welcome day. But it's a day that somehow the government has forced upon us by abdicating education as a priority," said Michael McCuskey, board chairman, according to The (Bloomington) Patagraph.

He lamented that more public dollars being spent on incarceration, while less goes to education.

Universities are raising tuition to deal with decreased support from the state. Illinois' public universities this year are together waiting for more than $700 million that's been appropriated but isn't being paid because of the state's $13 billion budget deficit.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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