Ball State's Board of Trustees plan to adopt a 1.25 percent increase in base tuition for Indiana residents – the lowest increase in 41 years.
The board will consider the increase in adoption of tuition and fees of the 2018 fiscal year at the next meeting on June 7. That meeting follows a public hearing on June 6 where recommendations for tuition fee rates for the 2018-19 school year will be discussed.
While the proposal tuition increase, announced at Friday's meeting, has not been adopted yet, Vice Chair Renae Conley said she is confident the proposal will pass.
"I'm very comfortable with the recommendation of 1.25 percent," Conley said. "Bernie [Hannon, vice president for business affairs and treasurer] and his team have done a lot of work on this making sure that we had a balanced budget going forward. ... It's been a lot of work, but it's a great outcome."
Over the past three years, percent increases in tuition have continued to go down. The 2017-18 fiscal year proposed increase is significantly lower than last year's 1.6 increase as well as 2015-16, where a 1.65 percent increase was accepted.
This proposed tuition increase came after Indiana lawmakers approved increased operating appropriations of 3.2 percent and 1.7 percent increase for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscal years, respectively. The state appropriations result in approximately a third of the university general fund budget.
"It's really amazing ... it's going to have the lowest [tuition] increase in 41 years," Board Chair Rick Hall said. "That's important to our students."
Student numbers also appear to be on the rise. During the May 5 meeting, Kay Bales, vice president for student affairs and enrollment services, updated the board on enrollment numbers.
As of May 3, Ball State had 24,054 applications, 89 less than that time last year. Currently, the university has 4,303 freshman confirming enrollment, which is nearly 100 more confirms than last year's 4,205.
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