ISU responds to Purdue tuition freeze

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Indiana State University (ISU) officials say they're closely watching Indianapolis this legislative session.
That’s because the state budget - now in the Senate - could work against the university or for it.
     
Purdue University president Mitch Daniels announced Friday, March 1, he'd frozen the university’s tuition.
    
ISU leaders say it’s to early to tell what might happen to the school tuition.

Vice president of business affairs and finance at ISU Diann McKee said historically, most institutions raise their tuition every two years.

It's a state requirement.
    
But with unavoidable increases in utility costs and health care costs for school employees, it's difficult to cut back.
   
The school has initiatives so students won't feel the financial blow.
    
But over the past 6 or 7 years, ISU has lost about 10 million dollars in state funding.

Certainly, probably, one of the major factors, particularly for our institution has been loss of state funding. As the state has not been in the position over the last several to put any new dollars in higher education,” said McKee.
    
The school is very mindful of affordability so students can financially afford to attend ISU.
    
But they're not making any decisions until the state has their say.

“So we're very cognizant of all of those issues; however, we really feel we need to wait until the general assembly has concluded the budget writing session which will determine what our funding level might be from the state for the next two years. Once that has concluded, we will work with our trustees to see what level of tuition increase we might have,” said McKee.
    
But McKee said two years ago, the school chose to roll back their tuition increase.

“For this past year, our students have, there was a one and a half percent increase in tuition, which certainly is below the cost of what inflation indicators that you might see out there,” said McKee.
    
School leaders say ISU is still the most affordable state funded university.
    
Officials say they work to keep costs low.