The Arkansas State University Board of Trustees approved a tuition and fees increase for its campuses in the 2014-15 academic year during its meeting Friday.
Tuition and fees will increase by 2.8 percent at the Jonesboro campus, 4.8 percent at the Beebe campus, 2.8 percent at the Mountain Home campus and 5 percent at the Newport campus. The average additional cost to a full-time student is $105 per semester.
At the Jonesboro campus, rates will increase to $7,720 from $7,510, a $210 increase per student.
“This is the second-lowest tuition and fee increase at our Jonesboro campus in 10 years,” Charles L. Welch, system president, said in a news release. “We continue to explore new opportunities to generate revenue to support our mission because we simply can’t do it on the backs of students and parents, nor can we count on increased state funding.”
Included in the fee-increase is an additional $2 academic excellence fee to help fund a 2 percent merit salary increase for staff.
Overall, the board approved an operating budget of $238.5 million, a 1.5 percent increase over the previous year. That’s less than the 2.8 percent inflation rate for U.S. higher education.
The Jonesboro campus revenue budget for the 2014-15 academic year is $180.6 million, an increase of 1.47 percent over this year’s projections.
Chancellor Tim Hudson said the university’s budget would also provide a 1 percent merit salary increase for non-classified employees.
Last week, Arkansas Tech University also approved tuition and fee increases, but the university says its rates for the 2014-15 academic year are lower than this year’s rates at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Central Arkansas and Arkansas State University.
Tuition rates for the University of Central Arkansas and University of Arkansas have yet to be decided upon. The UA Board of Trustees is set to discuss an increase in tuition and fees this week.
In February, UCA approved increases to room and board rates, in addition to a $3.50 per credit hour increase to the student facility fee to fund bonds for the $17.5 million Lewis Science Center renovation project.
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