It just needs Board of Trustees approval.
Students could be paying 5 percent more to study at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine next year.
The Board of Trustees approves tuition increases one year at a time, but university officials predict the rate will increase by 5 percent each year until 2020.
Earlier this month, Ohio University’s Budget Planning Council approved next year’s 5 percent tuition and Medical Learning Resource Fee increase, and is waiting on approval by the Board of Trustees before the increases can go into effect.
If the tuition increases pass, in-state students will pay an additional $1,574 and out-of-state students will pay an additional $2,224.
The increases are expected to bring in an additional $1.3 million, which will be used to pay for faculty compensation and other costs.
“These increases are necessary to maintain a current level of support and service for our students,” said Karoline Lane, chief communications officer for OU-HCOM, in an email.
If OU-HCOM tuition fee increases by 5 percent until 2020, as the university projects, in-state students would pay $41,442 in 2020; as opposed to the $32,740 they paid this year. Out-of-state students would pay $58,044 in 2020. They paid $45,750 this year.
Costs increased at 5 percent for the 2013-14 academic year, but officials say this is nothing new.
“Pending university Board of Trustees approval, this increase would be consistent with increases seen in the past decade or more,” Lane said.
Lane said that OU-HCOM would still have lower costs than many medical schools in Ohio and would still be the cheapest among its two comparison schools: Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine and Northeast Ohio Medical University.
For the 2014-2015 academic year, NEOMED’s in-state tuition was around 10 percent more than OU-HCOM’s. Boonshoft School of Medicine’s in-state tuition was around 9 percent more than OU-HCOM, according to OU data.
"A few thousand dollars goes a long way on the debt side of things,” said Kenneth Johnson, executive dean of OU-HCOM. “We work very hard to manage the cost and try to keep the tuition as low as we can."
NEOMED, as well as other medical schools in Ohio, are still finalizing increases for the 2015-16 academic year, said Heather Griesbach, a spokeswoman for NEOMED.
For the 2014-15 year, NEOMED increased tuition 2.9 percent, and the Boonshoft School of Medicine increased tuition 2.2 percent.
The average tuition increase for public schools between the 2013-2014 and 2014-15 academic years was 4.1 percent for in-state and 2.5 percent for out-of-state, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“Keeping our program as affordable as possible helps us to fulfill our mission,” Lane said. “Financial constraint should never be the reason that a gifted and motivated medical student decides against pursuing a career goal of becoming an osteopathic physician.”
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