

NEW BRUNSWICK — Rutgers University's governing body is scheduled to vote Wednesday on tuition and fee increases for the 2014-2015 school year.

The school's board of governors will meet at 1:30 p.m. in Winants Hall in New Brunswick. The board is expected to go immediately into a closed session, then discuss the tuition increase during a 2:30 p.m. public session.

The board is scheduled to hold separate votes on tuition, fees, room and board rates and Rutgers' overall budget for the upcoming year. University officials have not indicated how large an increase they are considering.

Last year, Rutgers raised tuition and fees 3.3 percent. The average in-state Rutgers undergraduate paid $13,499 in tuition and fees. Once room and board were added, Rutgers students living on campus pay an average total bill of $25,077, or nearly $600 more than the previous year.

The board also raised tuition and fees for graduate students and out-of-state students at the 65,000-student university.

Members of the Rutgers board of governors held a tuition hearing earlier this year. Several students testified, asking the board to either freeze tuition or keep the increase to a minimum.

Most of the state's private colleges have already set tuition for the upcoming school year. New Jersey's public colleges usually wait until the summer, after the state Legislature approves the state budget, to decided on tuition increases.

New Jersey continues to have some of the highest tuition rates in the nation. Earlier this month, a U.S. Department of Education ranking said New Jersey Institute of Technology and the College of New Jersey had some of the highest public college tuition rates in the country.

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