Oakland University hikes tuition 8.48%

Oakland University will raise tuition by 8.48% for the coming school year, joining Eastern Michigan University in giving up a portion of its state aid in exchange for a big increase in tuition dollars.

The tuition hike, approved by the Board of Trustees this afternoon, will mean Oakland will violate the state-imposed tuition cap of 3.2%. In doing so, the Rochester school will forfeit the performance-based portion of its state aid. That's about $1.2 million. The tuition increase will bring in an additional $12 million over what the university would have gotten in tuition revenue if it had stayed at the cap. The overall budget is $253 million.

Eastern Michigan University raised its tuition 7.8%. All other Michigan public universities have stayed under the cap.

University President George Hynd presented the increase to the board and told reporters afterwards the university "has ambitious plans. Now we've got to deliver.

"This is an incredibly important time."

The increase will cost an in-state freshman student about $30 per credit hour. That means the average sticker cost will climb from $11,460 to $12,491 for tuition for a year.

"We have a new president and a new strategic plan that lays out several initiatives for the coming year," Oakland CFO John Beaghan told the Free Press in an interview before the board meeting. "There's a need for funding those initiatives. In a time of relatively low funding from the state, it's kind of tough to do that in any other way."

Among the things the university will do with the money:

■ Begin planning on a $40-million Oakland Center renovation.

■ Begin planning on a $30-million Elliott Hall expansion.

■ Add 11 faculty members.

■ Add four academic advisers.

■ Add two Graham Health Center psychologists.

■ Improve internship and career planning for students.

Oakland has averaged a 3.29% tuition increase over the last three years. Those small increases, combined with the state funding, have made it difficult for the university to accomplish what it needs to, Beaghan said.

He points out that Oakland receives $2,830 per full-time equivalent student in state aid. That's the lowest of any Michigan public university. If it got the average of $4,775 per full-time equivalent student, Oakland would have an additional $33 million per year, Beaghan said.

The lower funding has had an impact, he said. Oakland has the second highest number of students per faculty member and the fifth lowest number of staff per 1,000 students. It also has the third lowest total revenue — state aid plus tuition — per student.

Students were shocked by the news.

"That's a huge jump," said junior Will Maskill, 20, of Livonia. "We're halfway through the summer already and this gets sprung on us? I understand wanting to add faculty and do some improvements, but this is really going to hurt."

Maria English, a 19-year-old sophomore from Northville, was also surprised to hear the number.

"I knew it was going to be going up, but I didn't think it would be that much," she said.

Oakland has been seen enrollment growth for more than a decade. Hynd admitted the tuition increase could harm that growth, but said Oakland is at a good size now.

"I think we're in the Goldilocks zone," he said. "Now we need to make sure we are able to add faculty, to add staff and make the improvements our students are telling us they want."

The state's performance funding system was introduced by Gov. Rick Snyder when he took office. He included a tuition restraint provision that says that if universities go over the annual cap set by the state, they forfeit the performance funding.

The last university to go over a cap before this year was Wayne State University, which in 2013 approved a 8.9% increase. The tuition cap that year was 3.75%. Wayne State received an additional $7 million in tuition revenue from the move, school officials said.

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj