State System board allows IUP, others to modify tuition charges
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The board overseeing the 14 stateowned universities approved plans Thursday by several of them to modifyhow they price tuition next year.
Among them are Indiana University of Pennsylvania, which will bill out-of-state students per-credit, rather than by flat rate. IUP also will reducecharges at branch campuses.
The State System of Higher Education board of governors took the action at a meeting in Harrisburg, about two weeks after the various campus plans were floated.
IUP will charge students from outside Pennsylvania a per-credit rate that is 145 percent of the percredit rate it already has instituted for in-state, full-time undergraduate students.
The board of governors also will allow the school to reduce tuition it charges in-state undergraduates at its Northpointe and Punxsutawney campuses to 80 percent of the main campus rate, a shift to $247 per credit from $309.
Both campuses have seen freshmen and transfer enrollment drop by 86 percent since 2014. The board also approved: • East Stroudsburg University’s plan to offer a four-year guaranteed tuition price, set for the first three years at a rate somewhat higher than the system’s base tuition, and somewhat lower than the system base rate in the fourth year.
The board long has set the system’s tuition, which for in-state undergraduates is $7,492 in 2017-18, not counting room, board and other fees. But leaders have increasingly let individual schools depart from that model to address program delivery costs and the local admissions market.
• Mansfield University’s plan to modify pilot programs that altered its out-of-state prices and allowed per-credit charges for full-time students.
The system universities also include California, Clarion, Edinboro and Slippery Rock universities in Western Pennsylvania.
• The appointment of Donna Wilson as interim president of Lock Haven, effective March 30. Ms. Wilson, university provost since 2012, will fill in upon the retirement of Michael Fiorentino Jr., president since July 2011.