Tuition at ASU may rise 22%

While they're busy raising things, maybe they could raise admission standards 22%. All ASU students — both past and present — could benefit by increased academic 'equity' in their degrees. Of course, as long as more and more students are coming in to pay for all this incredible growth at ASU, that will never happen.

By Laura Giovanelli in today's Winston-Salem Journal:

ASU's $400 increase in tuition would go toward a 15 percent increase in faculty salaries, plus allocate more money for graduate-student assistants, and new programs in nursing, occupational therapy and professional sciences, said Greg Lovins, the associate vice chancellor for administration. A portion of the tuition increase would offset the cost of the increase for students who get need-based financial aid.

Students will also pay a few hundred more dollars in activity, athletic, book-rental and transportation fees, and if they live on campus they'll pay more in room and board. The total price tag for an undergraduate, in-state student attending ASU next year could increase by $1,042, or about 13 percent, from $7,893 a year to $8,935.

...A petition is being passed around campus, urging administrators to consider other financing sources, said Jud Watkins, a junior and the student-government president. Yesterday, he suggested a special fundraising campaign to replace the tuition increase. "It's massive," Watkins said of the proposed increase. "It's not really an 'us vs. them' type of thing, but rather the Appalachian family as a whole needs to go after other funds and go after them a lot harder."

Watkins said he is concerned about middle-class families, in particular, because he thinks they will have to take out more money in loans to cover the increase. In 2004, 48 percent of students who graduated borrowed money.