Starting in the summer semester, in-state students will pay $7.80 more per credit hour and out-of-state students will pay $48.46 more per credit hour, after the UM System Board of Curators consented to increase MU in-state tuition by 3.0 percent and out-of-state tuition by 7.5 percent.
In response to the tuition increase, MU students said there could be a way to make up the lack of budget for higher education from other sources, not solely from the students.
In-state MU freshman Christopher Lenz said he was disappointed in the state government.
“I have to believe that, if they considered every alternative, state legislators could find ways to ameliorate the budget crisis without slashing spending on education,” Lenz said.
Lenz said the main goal for state schools is to make their education affordable to their own residents. He said he understood why the increase rate of the out-of-state tuition was higher than that of the in-state tuition.
Although in-state students were generally OK with these increases, some out-of-states students were upset with these increases.
“I understand the need to make up for a budget gap, but I certainly disagree with the method,” freshman Ryan Walker said. “Out-of-state students will be among the hardest hit with the tuition increase.”
He said he will stay at MU but he hoped the administration will put a greater emphasis on scholarships for out-of-state students because they make up a great deal of his payment.
MU Director of Admissions Barbara Rupp said there will be no additional scholarship opportunities for out-of-state students. She said the UM System Board of Curators had to increase more on the out-of-state tuition to make up the budget cuts.
“While none of us were eager to increase the out-of-state tuition, the budgets cuts that we face required us to find a variety of ways to make up that loss of revenue,” she said. “It became clear that increasing non-resident tuition 4 percent more than the resident increase was something we would have to consider.”
In spite of the 7.5 percent out-of-state tuition increase, she said she still believed that MU provides a high quality education at a reasonable price for non-resident students as well as resident students.
“I think we will see evidence of that as we continue to attract non-resident students in the coming years,” she said.
MU international students were also sensitive about the tuition increase.
MU senior Jianghui Wen said it is an unfair decision to increase the out-of-state tuition doubled amount compare to that of the in-state tuition.
“As an international students, we already pay more than American students,” she said.
Rupp said MU will introduce new international merit scholarships effective next fall. These would only apply to incoming international students.