IU 'gets away' with 7.5
percent increase
By Kurt Esposito
Summer
Editor
The Indiana University trustees approved tuition
increase of 7.5 percent Tuesday – the same increase made by the
Purdue Board of Trustees on May 18.
The increase for IU translates into an increase
from the average tuition for an in-state student from $4,363 to $4,690
a year and for an out-of-state student from $13,418 to $14,424 a year.
Jake Oakman, Indiana University student body president,
said the inflation of tuition fees, which equal a raise of $186 a semester,
will hurt students who struggle to pay their tuition each semester.
"Some kids work two jobs to pay their bills. Even if it s just tow meals
a month, it's eventually going to catch up to you."
Susan Dillman, director of media relations for
Indiana University, said the increase was not intended to hurt the students,
but rather intended to retain the school's faculty.
The increase is the largest for the university
was the largest since the 1994-95 school year.
"I don't think they needed to raise it that much,"
said Stan Jones, commissioner of Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
"But I think they thought they could get away with it because Purdue
raised their tuition that high."
Purdue still has lower tuition rates than IU and,
Jones said, IU did not need to keep op with Purdue. "(They're) better
off being more competitive on the basketball court," he said.
Dillman said, "No, it's not a coincidence. We believe
Purdue University is experiencing many of the same challenges and funding
form the state was very much the same, so in that respect it is not
a coincidence."
Joe Bennett, vice president of Purdue University
Relations, agreed, "No, the two universities arrived at their conclusions
completely independently."
One of the main reasons both universities made
the increase was to keep their salaries for faculty competitive. Dillman
said, "A number of better funded schools, both public and private, have
been courting out faculty."
She said it is normal for universities to court
faculty from other universities; but it is happening too often and from
universities with more money.
"We need to apply what is similar to the going
rate," she said.
Jones said both Universities could have made solid
faculty raises with a five percent increase.
Bennett said, "That argument does not take into
account the additional cost we face for staff medical benefits, which
will go up 20 percent, and the cost of energy, which will go up 10 percent."
He said the increase for the faculty salaries had
to be added on top of the increases for energy and medical benefits,
making the 7.5 raise necessary.
Jones said, "I'm concerned that if we continue
with 7.5 percent increases that both IU and Purdue will price themselves
out of the middle class family market."
• The Associated Press contributed to this
story.
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