The board voted to increase tuition by just under 5% for in-state, undergraduate students.
For the typical undergraduate, that means around a $400 increase per year. The university has been working on a tuition update for months.
Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey said this tuition increase sits in the middle of the pack compared to other public universities in Oregon.
But, he said SOU should also be comparing the tuition for specific programs, like its Masters in Education, when trying to attract students.
“We’re competing against schools like Grand Canyon University and others,” Bailey said. “We need to make sure that we’re really doing a thorough market analysis to see where we’re at in some of those specific programs.”
The Masters in Education is one of three degrees that won’t see an increase in tuition, along with the online MBA and Masters of Science in Education programs.
Board of Trustees Vice Chair Sheila Clough agreed, and said that the university needs to be thinking about the prices of each individual degree and what students SOU should be trying to attract.
“The reality is, if we want to be a competitive university, you have to do this type of pricing of your product,” she said.
By keeping the increase below 5%, the university avoids having to get approval from the state Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
Bailey said one win from this plan is that the university wouldn’t need to increase the mandatory Student Health Services fee due to a new partnership with community health-center La Clinica.
That non-profit will take over operations of the on-campus student health center in September, and will keep most of the revenue from the partnership.
The increase was approved almost unanimously by the board, with just one abstention.
