The Board approved tuition increases Friday amid protests from students.
The Board of Trustees on Friday rose tuition at Ohio University for all students next academic year, setting rates 2 percent higher for continuing students and 5.1 percent higher for incoming freshmen.
The incoming class of freshmen, who are residents of Ohio, will hit the bricks in Athens this coming Fall Semester and pay 5.1 percent more than the current $10,536 tuition and fees rate. That tuition hike is part of the university's guaranteed tuition model, dubbed the OHIO Guarantee, set to debut in the 2015-16 academic year.
Students not in that incoming class will pay 2 percent more than the current cost for tuition and fees. That comes to about $10,740.
The Board approved both measures amid protests from students. Three were arrested by OU Police for disturbing a lawful meeting.
About 30 students rushed the front of the Ohio University Board of Trustees meeting Friday — seconds before the Board voted for another year’s tuition increase.
The protestors chanted against a 5.1 percent tuition increase for the incoming freshman class under guaranteed tuition, asking to be considered “students, not customers” through handmade signs. They also called for the full funding of the survivor advocacy program and to cease progress on building a new natural gas pipeline.
The meeting was temporarily suspended and trustees walked out, but the Board unanimously passed tuition increases once the protestors desisted.
The state mandates that regular tuition increases are capped at two percent and guaranteed tuition increases are capped at six percent.
Board of Trustees Chair David Brightbill called today’s meeting “historic.”
“We’re the first university in the state to do this,” Brightbill said once the meeting resumed and the resolution passed.
Before the protestors interrupted the meeting, Trustee Sandra Anderson said next academic year’s tuition prices had been vetted by all sections of OU’s shared governance. The Board intends for OU’s new Signature Scholarship program to offset tuition increases for the “neediest” students, Anderson said.
“It is our goal and our direction to make sure that the needy students are not impacted by the rate increases,” Anderson said.
Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones said she was sad to see three students arrested when they were given the chance to cease and desist.
“I also know that that’s a choice because they’re standing up for what they believe in,” Hall-Jones said.
