By IAN BENJAMIN
Executive Editor
A 4.5 to 5 percent tuition increase and hike in fees is planned for the 2012 to 2013 academic year, according to an announcement made during President’s Day Thursday.
The Strategic Planning and Priorities Committee will be recommending the increase for fiscal year 2013, which begins July 1 for Saint Rose, said Marcus Buckley, vice-president of finance and administration.
Saint Rose tuition, including mandatory fees paid every semester, stands at $25,464. The increase in tuition and fees will be in the range of $1,145 and $1,273 annually, bringing the total tuition and mandatory fees to between $26,609 and $26,737.
Buckley said there are several reasons for the tuition increase, including “varying pressures, lapse of returns” and having “not been able to achieve [The College’s] revenue targets.” He said that this increase is consistent with “a long record of tuition fee increases that reflect, on a one year lag, the national average.”
“If any of you talk to SPPC they will tell you that for the first time in a lot of peoples’ memory our first budget models for next academic year were all ready to go to bottom,” said Buckley to the gathered faculty, staff and students. “That’s a new experience for this institution for some years.”
“We think [that the tuition and mandatory fee increase] continues to keep the College’s position as a well-priced private institution,” Buckley said. “From the marketplace standpoint it makes a lot of sense for the College.”
The proposal also noted a 5 percent increase in undergraduate room and board to “reflect increased costs of consumables and operations,” according to a summary of the proposal dispersed to the audience in the Touhey Forum Thursday morning.
Currently, a standard double room (the least expensive form of housing) costs $2,588 and Meal Plan 3 (the least expensive meal plan available to residents) costs $2,511. If this proposal is approved, it would increase the cost of a standard double room to $2717.40 and Meal Plan 3 to $2636.55. An incoming freshman next academic year who is attending Saint Rose full time, living in a standard double room and eating on Meal Plan 3 will experience a combined price hike of between $1399.95 and $1527.95 over a freshman with the same options this year.
The proposal, which will be going before the president in the next two weeks, additionally recommends that there be no increase in graduate tuition and fees. “Given the voluntary nature of graduate education, […] it would make most sense not to increase the tuition, but rather try to increase the number of credit hours that grad students are taking,” said Buckley.
During his President’s Day address, Buckley also said that certain fees associated with Saint Rose subsidized services should be expected in the future, including a possible increase in per-copy printing cost for students and others not consuming campus printing capabilities for institutional purposes, as well as a possible increase in certain parking fees.
Wrapping up his updates, Buckley noted that the Saint Rose CDTA bus program has been very successful. “In the month of October there was an average of 3,400 rides a week on CDTA buses using the Saint Rose ID,” Buckley said. “So if you notice that there is a little less parking congestion out there, it’s because so many people are taking the bus now.”
