George Ross followed through on promise for students with tuition increase
In April, Central Michigan University President George Ross said the school would not significantly increase tuition to address its financial challenges.
Ross followed through on Thursday, recommending the CMU Board of Trustees adopt a 2.065 increase in tuition, the lowest of the three proposed options, for the 2010-11 academic year.
Thankfully, the board listened.
With the increase students will pay $346 a credit hour, a $7 bump, and give CMU an operating budget of $417,903,423.
It’s difficult to swallow any tuition increase, but this one was a smart move for the school.
While it is still not unreasonable to think CMU could have avoided raising tuition at all — similar to what Eastern Michigan University did — they made the right move and should be praised. While schools like Saginaw Valley State University and Michigan Technological University raised tuition nearly 6 percent, others such as the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Michigan State University kept it under 3 percent.
CMU followed suit and did what it had to do to remain affordable for students and their families given the continued economic conditions in the state.
Not only would a 5 or 6 percent increase been a nightmare for current students, it would have driven away potential freshman, a number CMU expects to be one of its highest on record.
The board approval was a good sign that CMU officials are keeping their word and minds on students, not themselves.
Employees and faculty should be praised, too, for accepting pay freezes to help curb an increasing budget.
Now focus needs to go elsewhere, toward helping retention.
As of March, CMU had a retention rate of 76.1 percent which places CMU at fourth in the state in retention.
Now that CMU could get a record number of incoming freshmen the retention number needs to grow in kind.
All the students in the world will unfortunately do little good if they only stay (and pay) for one or two of the eight semesters most require to graduate.
Now is the time for the university to re-evaluate academic programs, classes, and student services. It will require a significant investment to propel CMU onward instead of just treading water.
With more freshman flooding the school with fresh pocketbooks and clean slates, now is the perfect time for the university to position itself as a stronger and leaner institution than ever.
