Scroll down for a graphic explaining the tuition increase.
Current Ohio University students with some Gateway scholarships will not have to pay next year's tuition increase.
For the 2014-15 academic year, students with a need-based OHIO Gateway scholarship will not have to pay the $156 increase in tuition, a top university official told The Post in an email Monday night.
Last Friday, OU's Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition for next year by 1.5 percent, or $156, as well as increasing room and board rates.
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Eligible students include those who had Bobcat or Gateway grants during the 2013-14 academic year, have maintained their eligibility for the grants and will be enrolled at OU in the fall, wrote Laura Myers, chief of staff to the university's executive vice president and provost and the vice president for Finance and Administration.
Between 700 and 1,400 students will receive the scholarship, she said.
"We will begin to make those awards in the near future," Myers said.
New students and those with many other current scholarships are not affected.
Contact OU's Office of Student Financial Aid to learn if this applies to you.
More than $106,000 is being devoted to deferring the cost of the tuition increase from "central scholarship funding," she said.
The 1.5 percent increase will bring OU more than $2 million in extra funding.
"These students generally have an estimated family contribution of $8,000 or less," she said. "The goal for enhancing the program will be to mitigate the effects of the tuition increase on those students for whom this increase will create the greatest financial burden."
The plan has been in the works for at least a few months, with OU President Roderick McDavis announcing these scholarships in a campus-wide email in April. In the same email, he said he would recommend a 1.5 percent tuition increase to the university's Board of Trustees.
Myers also directed The Post to a 2013 study done by the university that showed tuition increases do not contribute to a rise in student debt.
University statistics show there were years with no tuition increase — namely academic years 2007 and 2008 — where student debt rose substantially.
"Over the past few years, family need, as calculated by the FAFSA, has not necessarily correlated with the family decision to take on student debt," Myers said. "Some students may choose to take on student debt rather than to spend family funds for educational expenses."
The findings were presented to the board last year. The Post asked to see the study after Pam Benoit, OU's executive vice president and provost, said at last week's board meeting that debt and tuition increases aren't linked.
"There (is) not a correlation between student debt and tuition increases," she said last week. "Students don't simply take debt for tuition. They take debt for a wide vareity of reasons. So to tie it solely to an increase in tuition — I think it's not a direct link."
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