Last month, FAU Board of Trustees, a 13 member board responsible for university policy decisions, voted to keep undergraduate tuition as is at $110.90 per credit hour for Florida Residents. With the undergrad’s wiping their sweaty foreheads, it’s the grad students that got the unlucky draw- an increase in tuition by five percent that begins this fall.
Going from $244.12 per credit hour to $256.33, that’s over $2300 for a full-time, nine credit per semester for a resident Graduate student. Ken Jessell, Vice President of Finance, says that this increase for grads hasn’t happened in a couple of years.
“The 2004-05 school year was the last time graduate tuition was raised [for in-state grads],” Jessell says. “Our Board felt it was appropriate.”
President of the University Faculty Senate and Board member Eric Shaw says that the only people who could be affected by a tuition raise were in-state grad students.
“[The tuition raise] couldn’t affect undergrads because Governor Crist vetoed that option,” Shaw, Chair of the Marketing Department in the College of Business, says. “We have the lowest tuition for resident graduate students- 50th out of 50. The only people we could target were in-state grads.”
The vote from the Board of Trustees comes after a state budget that Governor Charlie Crist vetoed in May. Crist, who cut the record $459 million budget, says it was to “protect the people.”
“Honoring the fact that people across the state are pinching their pennies, so are we,” Crist said in a press conference after his cut.
The budget included a five percent tuition increase across the state for undergrads. Since the budget was vetoed, so was the tuition hike.
“We were hoping to have an increase from Governor Crist,” Jessell says. “$1.5 million was for FAU and $400,000 of that was going to Financial Aid.”
Jessell says that even though tuition would have been raised, the university would have offered more money in scholarships to help students who couldn’t afford the raise in tuition.
“Anytime we do a tuition increase, we look how it will affect our neediest students.”
Jessell says that some of the money would have gone to hiring more teachers and faculty members. Along with that, some of it would have gone to faculty salary increases.
Unfortunately for the grad’s, however, they must start shelling out an extra $12 per credit hour each semester due to their increase in tuition. That’s an extra $216 each year.
Emily Asbury, a grad student in the Fine Arts Master’s Program, says it could always be worse.
“I pay out of state graduate tuition,” Asbury says. “That’s almost $1000 per credit. With a full-time schedule, I start to forget how much I’m paying because it’s already insane.”
Asbury pays almost $9000 per semester on her nine credit course load. She says that no matter where students go, tuition will never be affordable.
“After being in college for six years, all colleges raise their tuition,” Asbury says. “Thank God this is my last year.”
