A sub-committee of the OSU Board of Trustees got a financial update on the university yesterday. For the moment trustees are not discussing higher tuition costs.
OSU tuition has not gone up in 3 years. Last July, following a two year freeze imposed by state lawmakers, Ohio's public colleges got the go ahead to raise tuition by 3 point 5 percent. OSU however, promised to not increase its prices for the 2 thousand 9 to 10 school year. But, one major department says it needs to raise more money. OSU athletics director, Gene Smith says revenues from merchandising are down and travel costs are up. "You as an individual when you travel now you pay for two bags. When our tennis team goes on the road they always have two bags. When our football team goes on the road and so on and so forth, so a lot of areas have increased in expenditures." Smith says.
With about 900 athletes in 36 sports Smith says he's concerned by how much more their scholarships could cost. "Tuition going up is a possibility so we have to plan for that possibility and that obviously has not been determined either, but we always budget on the conservative side so we assume that it's going up." Smith says.
Most football tickets would cost 70 dollars, an increase of 7 bucks. The revenue increase from football alone would be about 4 million dollars.
OSU senior vice president for finance, Bill Shkurti.
"The athletic department is doing what it's supposed to be do which is do long term planning as they set their ticket prices and they're making an estimate of what they think is going to happen to both tuition and room and board however the university has not yet reached a decision on what we want to do with tuition." Shkurti says. He expects a decision before May.
"We normally like to let students know what tuition is going to be coming next fall sometime in March or April, so we're getting close to a decision. We aren't there yet." Shkurti says.
The OSU board of trustees is expected to vote today on raising ticket prices.
