Students to react to increases

The clock is ticking for IU students to let their voices be heard on tuition increases for next year.\nThe IU board of trustees will meet at 3 p.m. today in the Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union for an open forum about several proposed increases for next year.\nAnd though students have been asked to voice their opinions about tuition increases via e-mail for several weeks now, both Trustee President Steve Ferguson and Trustee Vice President Pat Shoulders said they had not received any e-mails regarding the forum.\nStudent Trustee Casey Cox, however, said that he feels he can give the board a good view of student reaction to the proposed increases.\n"I've often joked that we need to take into consideration whether or not I'll get beat up on campus after we decide (whether) or not to raise it," he said in an e-mail. "When we do raise tuition we spend that money with responsibility and accountability always on our minds."\nOn the Bloomington campus, the current proposal calls for a total increase of tuition by 4.9 percent for all non-resident undergraduate students, the same amount that was approved last year, according to IU Information Web site.\nThis increase in tuition was previously approved for in-state students as part of a two year plan.\n"I think most people understand costs go up," Ferguson said. "Most people know that state support has decreased. The only other place we have to look for additional funding is with tuition."\nWhile undergraduate tuition increases look to remain steady, several graduate and professional programs on the Bloomington campus proposed smaller tuition increases than last year.\nAt the Bloomington campus, only graduate programs in the Kelley School of Business have proposed the exact same increase as last year. The business school is looking to increase tuition by 6.9 percent for resident and 6.7 percent for non resident graduate students. \nThe IU School of Law plans to increase tuition for in-state grad students by 10 percent. Law school tuition for non-resident students is proposed to rise 6.7 percent, down from an approved 9.7 percent increase last year.\nThe Library and Information Science program has proposed a tuition increase of 7.2 percent for resident graduate students and 8 percent for non-residents. Last year, the trustees approved increases of 9.6 and 8.9 percent, respectively.\nThe School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the School of Optometry and all other graduate programs also have smaller increases on the table.\nAll regional campuses are hosting teleconference sites and there will be a live Internet broadcast at http://broadcast.iu.edu.\nAll proposed increases for all campuses are available at http://newsinfo.iu.edu/pub/libs/images/usr/1432_h.pdf.