Last modified: Monday, July 6, 2009
McRobbie proposes modest tuition increases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 6, 2009
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University President Michael McRobbie today (July 6) announced that he will recommend to IU trustees a balanced program of spending restraints and tuition increases below the maximum 5 percent level recommended by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
McRobbie said the combination of tuition increases and spending reductions are necessary to prepare the university for a potential 6 percent cut in state funding in two years.
McRobbie is recommending in-state undergraduate tuition and fee increases of 4.6 percent this year and 4.8 percent next year at IU Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. At IU's five regional campuses, in-state undergraduate tuition would go up 4.4 and 4.6 percent respectively in the next two years.
McRobbie said that even with these increases, the average out-of-pocket undergraduate tuition cost for Hoosier families is expected to go down significantly because of greatly increased financial aid grants.
"We are recommending to trustees a tuition plan for the next two years that, together with increased financial aid, will mean that annual tuition payments for in-state IU students should decrease by an average of $177," McRobbie said.
"The average out-of-pocket amount paid by Indiana residents for tuition and fees at IU has fallen by nearly 4 percent over the last three years," McRobbie noted. "And we expect that trend to continue, even with the modest tuition increases we are recommending to our trustees."
Graphs showing average out-of-pocket tuition and fee expenses for in-state students at Indiana University and its campuses can be seen at https://www.indiana.edu/~iunews/09feerecommendations.pdf.
By 2010-11, $250 million in financial aid will be made available to in-state students across IU's seven campuses. Innovative financial aid programs such as the 21st Century Covenant and Pell Promise combine extensive state and federal financial aid funding with IU dollars to hold down costs.
At IU Bloomington, in-state tuition payments are expected to drop by 15 percent because of the generosity of almost 50,000 individual donors to the ongoing Matching the Promise capital campaign, which has raised more than $200 million for undergraduate scholarships,
McRobbie is also putting in place a series of spending restraints, including restrictions on travel and administrative hires.
State funding to IU was cut in the two-year state budget approved last week, however these cuts were backfilled with federal stimulus money to eliminate what would have amounted to a 6 percent, or $29.3 million shortfall, in the 2010-11 academic year.
"It is unlikely that federal stimulus money will be available in the next budget cycle to close this funding shortfall, so we must begin preparing now for what will likely be a budgetary cliff," McRobbie said.
