The state Board of Higher Education’s Budget and Finance Committee has given the okay to NDSU’s new tuition model for fall 2018.
The model says students will be charged per-credit hour. That amount would be capped after 13 hours, meaning anything over that would not come with a cost. And NDSU officials say that will help encourage students to finish their degrees faster.
Also, NDSU is rolling most student fees into tuition. That means a general 5.5 percent increase in tuition next fall, but because fees are rolled in, students may actually be getting a small break on their college costs.
"Even though we have a disclosed tuition rate of 5.5 percent, we're actually receiving 1 percent less in total revenue from North Dakota students," Karin Hagstad, NDSU's associate Vice President for Finance and Administration told the Board's Budget and Finance Committee. "We do know this will need a lot of marketing, so students understand we are really not increasing fees."
Hagstad said when it comes to "cost of attendance," NDSU is still very competitive.
The plan also says students will pay per-credit hour charges – capped at 13 credits. That means students would not have to pay for credits over that amount. NDSU said that should help students get their degrees faster.
And the plan treats on-line students the same as in-person students.
"A credit is a credit," said NDSU Student Body President Mason Wenzel. He said this is something the student body has been supporting for some time.
"There's no reason an on-line class shouldn't be treated as a regular class," Wenzel said. "The current model is archaic."
NDSU President Dr. Dean Bresciani said the university has wanted to make these changes for a number of years.
"We have been waiting for our sister institutions to catch up," Bresciani said. "they needed to have the same time to put into it as we did."
