Tuition at Troy to increase in fall 2015

Tuition at Troy University will rise by 5.5 percent in the fall 2015 semester, according to the decision made at the board of trustees meeting on Friday, May 8.

The increase will be made in order to compensate for the $7.3 million in budget deficit.

“We were trying to get (the tuition increase) lower and we worked to get it lower,” said John Harrison, vice president pro tempore and the chair of finances. “So we decided to increase 5.5 percent instead of 7.2 percent. This reduced the budget by 1.4 million dollars.”

The current in-state tuition is at $272 per credit hour. With the increase, in-state tuition will rise by $15, increasing the cost per credit hour up to $287.

“You cannot cut your way of success, but you can cut your way for survival and that’s what we have attempted to do,” Chancellor Jack Hawkins Jr. said.

Hawkins also mentioned how the university went over on the budget for scholarships this academic year.

“We had 18 million in the budget but we had around 25 million demands going in the scholarship,” he said. “To pair that back to more realistic terms, we cannot continue to go that low. It will probably cost us a few students, but we need to get that under control because once we put it on paper, we got to live according to that.

“We got to recruit and retain more students, and we got to do more with less. That is the reality of where we are in this process.”

According to Hawkins, around 70 percent of the students at Troy receive some sort of financial aid.

“So we’ve got to be very sensitive about this moving forward,” he said.

It was also mentioned during the meeting that a Ph.D. program in sports management will begin in fall 2015 with 14 students enrolled in the curriculum for the first semester.

Hawkins also said that a master’s programs in economics will be offered next semester, and this may even extend to a Ph.D. program for economics in the future.

Lamar Higgins, chair of student affairs committee and SGA president Heath Barton, a junior risk insurance management major from Opp, also brought up the demand for a new recreation center on campus.

“This (demand) has been heard from the students repeatedly,” Hawkins said. “So I think this is something that has been framed as a need and this will be addressed.”

The plan for the recreation center was postponed earlier in the year by the board.