| At their regular business meeting
today, Miami University’s Board of Trustees
set tuition and general fees for the Hamilton
and Middletown regional campuses which will be
in effect for the 2004-2005 school year.
Annual tuition and general fees for full-time
regional campus lower division undergraduates
(those with up to 68 Miami credit hours) will
increase from $3,498 to $3,840. For full-time
upper division undergraduates (68 Miami credits
or more), annual fees will increase from $5,310
to $5,832. The changes represent a 9.9% increase
in annual fees for both lower and upper division
students.
According to data from the Ohio Board of Regents,
Miami’s regional campuses currently have
the lowest annual fees for lower division students
among all regional campuses in Ohio. That data
also shows that Miami’s regional campus
annual fees are $949 below the state average
for all of Ohio’s regional campuses.
Miami regional campus officials anticipate
for the coming year they again will be the lowest
in the state of Ohio’s 23 regional campuses.
The regional campuses are not included in the
Oxford campus tuition plan http://www.muohio.edu
“Miami Hamilton and Miami Middletown are
among the best bargains in higher education
in Ohio,” Miami President James Garland
said.
Garland explained tuition at Miami Hamilton
and Miami Middletown has gone up 16 percent
over the past three years, while during that
same period annual fees at other Ohio regional
campuses increased between 24 and 49 percent.
“For more than a decade we have been
working to hold the line on student fees,”
said Michael Governanti, executive director
of Miami Middletown, “and in the past
we were able to minimize annual increases and
even reduce fees.”
Daniel Hall, executive director of Miami Hamilton,
pointed out that increasing operation costs,
such as wages and salaries, and improving instructional
facilities and technology to meet student needs
present two of the greatest challenges for the
regional campuses.
“As area students realize the value of
a Miami education, and the convenience offered
by the regional campuses, our enrollments have
increased,” Hall elaborated. “Our
challenge has been providing the courses and
support services to help students attain their
educational and career goals in the face of
declining state support.”
“We do have increasing demands for service,”
Governanti noted, “and are working to
meet those needs by adding courses and programs
– but we have to do that within available
resources.”
Miami’s regional campuses serve approximately
6,500 undergraduate students each year, offer
graduate courses business and education, and
through graduate workshops provide professional
development opportunities for more than 500
primary and secondary school teachers each year.
In addition to offerings at the Hamilton and
Middletown campuses, the regional campuses,
through their Extended University initiative
(now in its eighth year), offer Miami courses
at off-site locations in Trenton and West Chester
in Butler County, Lebanon in Warren County,
and Eaton in Preble County. |
