PSU's Tuition Hike: 10%

Yesterday, Governor Kulongoski restored $11.5 million to the higher ed budget (he actually vetoed a last-minute cut by the lesislature). In today's Oregonian, Suzanne Pardington reports that the tuition hikes will range from 3.5% at Eastern Oregon to 15.4% at OU. PSU will have the second-highest hike at 10%.

The biggest Oregon increase is at the UO, where officials rolled a $150 spring tuition surcharge into the new rate. Annual full-time, in-state tuition and fees for UO undergraduates will be 15.4 percent more this fall than last fall.

Officials call it a 7.9 percent increase by adding the spring surcharge into last year's annual rate.

By the university system's figures, the tuition increases average 8 percent for the large universities and 5 percent for the smaller universities, as called for by the Legislature. They also comply with Legislature's caps of 9 percent for large campuses and 6.5 percent for smaller campuses. With differing numbers of credits, those numbers do not reflect what every student pays....

With college costs going up all over the country -- 14 percent at University of Washington and 9.3 percent for University of California -- Oregon students and board members were relieved that it wasn't worse.

This is all very useful. Over the summer, members of both the AAUP and university bargaining teams will be working together to figure out how to manage the cuts. Our negotiations have been hampered because we've lacked actual numbers. Now that they're coming in, we can see where we stand.