Tuition hike on the agenda as Nebraska Board of Regents meets

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Starting this fall, tuition at University Nebraska schools is going up under the proposed budget for the upcoming year.

The Board of Regents will consider the budget at its meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday.

If it’s approved, Nebraska residents attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will now pay $277 per credit hour, a $9 increase.

Nonresidents will pay over $888 per credit hour, which is a $29 increase.

Regent Tim Clare said this increase is an investment.

The university will use $1.5 million to expand the new presidential scholarship program, which offers free tuition to students who aced the ACT.

NU also wants to offer more help to students with not-quite-perfect ACT scores.

“Students that maybe had a 31, or a 32, or up to a 35 who do not quite qualify for a presidential scholarship, but they are outstanding students nonetheless,” Clare said. “So this will allow us to attract those students and keep them here.”

He said the goal is to get the best students to Nebraska, which will help NU get back into the American Association of Universities.

“We can’t get admitted into the AAU; we have to be invited back in,” Clare explained. “But what it enables us to do is prepare course offerings, research opportunities to prepare the university that when that invitation comes, and we hope it comes sooner rather than later, that we are worthy of being admitted.”

NU is also trying to close a $58 million budget shortfall.

So the budget includes over $11 million in proposed cuts to programs with small attendance or graduation rates.

Also included in the new proposal is a 3% merit-based pool for salary increases for nonunionized faculty and staff.

There is also $15 million in funding for the Kristensen Rural Health Education Complex at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

An international business student at UNL who wanted to remain anonymous said the increase won’t affect him because his education is paid for.

But he feels for his classmates who are struggling financially.

“My friends here, they are locals, take out student loans, and they are not sure how they are going to pay for it,” the student said.