University students heading back to school this year may have to scrounge for extra money for tuition, due to a 12 percent hike approved by the State Board of Higher Education in June.
Resident students taking 15 credits can expect to pay $1,890 per term in tuition and fees, up $227 from spring term, according to an Oregon
University System press release. OUS also approved a 3.5 percent tuition increase for nonresident students.
Students will also pay an additional $20 per credit for every credit between 14 and 16 credits.
But, on Sept. 10, the Board found the funding to adopt a $2.4 million “Tuition Mitigation Plan” to lessen the impact of tuition increases on students seeing larger-than-normal increases this year.
“The board saw the impact of tuition increases and wanted to try to do something to lessen the burden on students,” Saunders said.
Per-term charges for resident
undergraduates will not exceed spring 2004 levels by more than 15 percent during the 2004-05 school year, according to the plan. The funding came from $1,995,000 in Chancellor’s Office reorganization savings and $405,000 from the Chancellor’s Office Fund Balance, rather than from the universities, Saunders said.
In July, the board approved the $710 million budget for the 2005-07 biennium, which would result in a five percent increase in tuition if approved by the legislature. The budget is a 6.4 percent increase from the previous biennium.
In addition, the Board also requested a policy package of $20 million to reduce the tuition increase to 3.6 percent.
Oregon University System
spokeswoman Di Saunders called
the 2005-07 biennium budget “more student-focused,” adding that it would improve access, affordability and quality.
“Affordability and access are guide-words for this board,” Saunders said. “All concepts revolve around these ideas.”
Don Blair, chair of the Finance/Budget/Audit/Personnel/Real Estate Committee, said the board’s criteria for drafting the budget included making degrees more readily achievable, investing directly in creating ties to workforce demands and investing directly in “knowledge creation.”

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