The Ohio State University Board of Trustees Monday finalized a comprehensive freeze for undergraduates on in-state tuition, mandatory fees, and housing and dining fees for a second straight year. This repeats an affordability accomplishment that had not happened in at least 40 years.
The in-state tuition freeze will benefit more than 75 percent of undergraduate students and the room and board freeze will affect more than 25 percent.
The board also conferred the title of Distinguished University Professor on three faculty members (see separate release).
Housing rates are frozen at fiscal year 2015 rates for the second straight year, ranging from $6,130 to $7,876 annually. In addition, new dining plans that were introduced last year have been simplified and enhanced for fiscal year 2017 and the rate for each plan will remain flat, ranging from $3,700 to $4,516 annually.
The university has frozen in-state undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees since 2012-13, at $10,036.80, allowing two classes to graduate without ever experiencing an increase. At the same time, the university will expand the President’s Affordability Grants, which supply need-based financial aid for low- and middle-income Ohio undergraduates, to provide $20 million in aid for students in fiscal 2017. The grant program was established with $15 million in fiscal year 2016 as part of President Michael V. Drake’s 2020 Vision plan to increase need-based student aid by $100 million over five years.
Trustees also approved student health insurance rates that equate to a 7.8 percent increase for U.S. students and a 16 percent increase for international students, bringing the cost of both plans to parity, and meeting Affordable Care Act requirements. Ohio State students are required to carry health insurance, but U.S. students may choose among outside providers or the university’s health insurance plan. The vast majority of U.S. students – about 87 percent – use outside insurance and many are covered as dependents on their parents’ insurance. The adjustment reflects increases in costs in the health care marketplace.
In other business, the board approved a variety of personnel, fiscal and construction-related university matters.
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