ATHENS – At its April meeting, the Board of Trustees of Athens State University authorized its Executive Committee to meet with University officials in late May to make a final decision on tuition rates for the coming year. The Executive Committee met on Thursday morning, May 28, to consider the recommendation of the University’s Budget Advisory Committee, a standing committee of the University chaired by the Vice President for Finance and composed primarily of faculty members. The recommendation of the committee was to raise tuition by seven percent beginning with the Fall 2014 semester. After a thorough review of the work and reasoning of the committee, the Executive Committee approved the recommended tuition rates.
Mike McCoy, Vice President for Financial Affairs remarked, “The University Budget Advisory Committee worked diligently to recommend a seven percent increase on the lower end of the percentage range. We did not want the burden to be too great for our students and worked to find ways to cut back without losing integral staffing or programming.”
The seven percent increase in tuition rate will take effect with the beginning of the Fall 2014 semester. Even with this increase, Athens State University has the lowest per-hour tuition rate for a college or university in the state of Alabama. The increase will take the tuition rate from $167 to $179 per semester hour for traditional coursework and from $240 to $257 per semester hour for distance learning classes.
“This is something we didn’t want to have happen, but we are a product of our environment,” stated Athens State President Bob Glenn. “This is happening all across the country to institutions of higher education – most increases at a much higher percentage – and by keeping our infrastructure strong we avoid damaging our reputation for quality education. This was truly the only step we could take without impacting the end-product for our students.”
MEDIA RELEASE/ATHENS STATE UNIVERSITY/GUY MCCLURE, JR.
