This fall’s incoming freshmen will not experience a significant tuition increase, Central Michigan University Board of Trustees Vice Chair John Kulhavi said Monday.

“We have yet to decide what it’s going to be,” he said. “But it’s going to be a very low, very modest increase.”

The board will approve the rates at its July 17 meeting. Last fall’s incoming freshmen paid $304 per credit hour.

“I think it’s premature to speculate on what we might do with tuition,” said Board Chair Jeffrey Caponigro. “But I think it’s safe to say that a tuition increase of some type will occur.”

This is the first year since 2004 that the board will not need to plan tuition increases five years in advance. The CMU Promise – the school’s five-year guaranteed tuition plan – does not apply to incoming freshmen starting in the fall.

Caponigro said it is easier to set the rates that way.

“We just have go back to the traditional way of setting tuition, looking at it at a year at a time – or even a semester at a time – which is much easier than trying to predict four or five years ahead,” he said. “So it makes our job actually easier because you have a more finite period of time; less variances can occur.”

Returning students will pay the same amount, as they are still covered by the Promise.

Under the Promise’s tenure, tuition was increased 19 percent (3.8 per year) in 2005, 17 percent (3.4 per year) in 2006 and 21 percent (4.2 per year) in 2007. Because the rates were fixed, it required a steeper increase from the outset.

“We know the increase for freshmen coming in last year was very significant and we don’t want to put ourselves out of kilter with the rest of the MAC schools,” Kulhavi said.

Caponigro said CMU is still in the lower-tier for tuition in the Mid-American Conference and Michigan. Central’s tuition ranks fourth among the state’s public universities.

“Our tuition increases have always been relatively small,” he said.

The university has found ways to cut costs enough, Kulhavi said.

“First and foremost is the quality of education, period,” he said. “If we have to raise tuition 2 percent or 3 percent to accomplish that, then so be it. But we’re not trying to put ourselves in a position that we’re going to have a huge surplus or budget.”

“Right now, we’re more concerned about exploring ways to generate income without taxing the students … because we can’t count on it from the state – they don’t have it,” Kulhavi said.

David Burdette, vice president of financial and administrative services, who submits several proposals to the trustees for consideration, directed all inqueries to public relations.

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