The state Board of Higher Education has agreed on a compromise proposal on tuition rates for the 2014-2015 semester.
The Board rejected the recommendation of its budget and finance committee. That recommendation reduced the caps. Instead, the Board – on a 4 to 3 vote – approved the original proposal – with caps ranging from 2.13 percent to 7.1 percent. The university presidents had said they expected tuition increases would be lower than the cap – except at NDSU, where the increase would be 4.23 percent, and at Williston State College, where the increase would be 7.1 percent..
The system says the Legislature did not fully fund the new funding formula for higher education – and the deficit would be $3.5 million.
NDSU President Dean Breschani told the Board that without the tuition increase, there would be cuts in service.
"NDSU is still recovering from a long-term tradition of underfunding, even though you could argue that we're one of the highest performing institutions," said Breschani. "We're still in a recovery phase."
Board members who voted against the proposal say they didn’t want students to have to pay more than their share of the costs of higher education – and they said the college presidents needed to find savings in their existing budgets.
