News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Tennessee Tech Board of Trustees approved a tuition increase for the 2018-2019 academic year Tuesday.
TTU President Phil Oldham said multiple factors contributed into the increased tuition.
“We want to make sure that every dollar that comes into Tennessee Tech is invested as strategically as possible to go into the student experience, to make sure that we create value for the students,” Oldham said.
Oldham said the increase will be minimal at 2.66 percent. Board members said although other institutions across Tennessee have seen minimal to no increase, TTU will still be more affordable than schools like UT-Knoxville or UT-Memphis.
Oldham said the increase was largely due to required salary increases for TTU faculty brought forth by the state. The state was able to cover most of the increased salary costs, but still left some up to the school to fund.
“That means we had to find internal funds to cover the difference,” Oldham said. “That’s actually a fairly large portion of our tuition increase. But then there’s utility cost increases, a lot of other general operating costs that are largely out of our control.”
Board Member Barry Wilmore said although he voted for and understood the reasoning behind the tuition increase, he wasn’t a fan of seeing tuition go up again.
“From where I sit, I would just like to make it clear that I don’t think anybody on this board – me included – takes lightly increasing fees for our students for any reason whatsoever,” Wilmore said. “I know I’ve asked many questions, I’ve looked over the details, because I’m not in favor of increasing two-year subsequent fees at all.”
The board voted unanimously to approve the tuition increase. Oldham said during his presentation to the board this is actually the lowest tuition has risen at TTU year-to-year in the last seven years.
“As we get better at managing those cost increases that we can’t control, and address those that are in our control,” Oldham said, “we’ll be in a better position to control cost increases to the students through the tuition.”
According to TTU’s website, tuition and fees alone were at $8,700 for the 2017-18 academic year for students who lived in Tennessee, while the total costs reached up to $25,600.
