Tuition on the Rise
Room and board to cost more again for 2006-'07 year
By Rachana Dixit, news editor
Posted on April 20, 2006

As the 2006-’07 school year fast approaches, at least one thing is certain for new and returning students and their families — tuition and room and board will make a larger dent in their wallets, yet again.

The Board of Visitors approved new tuition and fees during their April 7 meeting. Currently for in-state undergraduate students, tuition will stand at $6,290 for the year, a $404 increase from last year. Undergrads from out of state will have to hand over something much more substantial, as their tuition is set at $16,236, up $914 from last year.

Per credit hour, Virginia and non-Virginia graduate students will have to pay $264 and $743 per credit hour, respectively.

Room and board for all students is $6,496 for the year. Sophomore Stacy Fuller, Student Representative to the Board of Visitors, said room and board is self-sustaining.

“We’re not getting any money from the state for that,” Fuller said.

 “As an out-of-state student, I feel it. Tuition increasing is like going to the dentist. For anyone like me, both are necessary and both are terribly undesirable.”

JMU spokesperson Andy Perrine said the BOV made the tuition decisions by looking at the three budgets under consideration in the Virginia General Assembly.

“The state is caught in a bit of a budget impasse right now,” Perrine said. “We don’t really know how much money we’re getting from the state.” Funding from the state is the most fundamental when operating the university.

He added that typically, the General Assembly has approved the budget by the end of their regular session at the end of March. However, at this point in time, the House, Senate and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine have their own budgets floating around Richmond vying for approval.

 Ultimately the disagreement Perrine said, lies in the issue of taxes in the General Assembly.

“There’s a lot of folks in the General Assembly that believe we should raise taxes,” said Perrine, “And there’s another group who thinks we shouldn’t.” Transportation issues, which Kaine has largely focused on during his term as governor, would require more funds to be allocated to that concern, or a taxation increase on Virginia residents.

In all likelihood, tuition will continue to increase with each upcoming school year.

“Tuition has been going up every year because our operating costs go up,” Perrine said. For the 2005-’06 school year, the university’s operating costs are about $258 million. For the same term, funding from tuition provides about $91 million to the total.

Similar to the situation in the General Assembly, the JMU Office of Financial Aid is playing the waiting game until there is a decided amount of funding for them as well.

Brad Barnett, the office’s senior associate director, said, “[Before the end of the semester] we need to have that figure before we can start putting out awards for returning students.”

About half of JMU students receive some form of aid that goes through the office, including loans, grants and private scholarships, as well as ones given by the university.

But, when looking at statewide figures for tuition and room and board, there is still hope for in-state and out-of-state students. With the proposed 2006-’07 increase, JMU’s total in-state tuition ranks fifth out of the 15 public universities in the state. Out of state, JMU’s tuition for next year ranks sixth. Virginia Military Institute has the most expensive in-state tuition for this year at $14,332 per student.  The University of Virginia out-of-state tuition is the highest at $30,489 for the year.