Officials increase university fees to keep up with rising costs

Students are paying more to attend OCU this academic year. 

Though the tuition rate is the same, university officials increased a per credit hour fee.

The fee increased $300 for students taking 30 credit hours per academic year. Kevin Windholz, vice president for enrollment management and university communications, said the increase was to keep up with rising costs in things like utilities and other services for students.

“The cost to maintain OCU naturally goes up, so, because of that, OCU has to have slightly more revenue to keep up with the rising costs,” Windholz said. “The reason we did the fee and the $300 a year was because it was a way for us to meet the need to keep up with the rising costs but still serve the students. The costs aren’t about us, they’re about the students.”

While the university fee has increased, the tuition rate itself has not changed since 2014, Windholz said.

“Three hundred dollars was a low impact compared to what it would have been like to raise tuition because we didn’t want people to be paying thousands more a year than what they paid last year,” he said.

Catherine Maninger, chief financial officer, said increases in costs to the university were inevitable, so university officials tried to minimize how much it would affect the students.

“The primary goal, really, is for the university to be able to offer an education that’s affordable and certainly has a return on investment,” Maninger said. “We’re not a public university, so we have to have tuition and fees, but I know that we’ve been trying to keep it down.”

Students who were interviewed said they were not made aware of the change.

Carlos Sanchez, English senior, said scholarships like the Clara Luper Scholarship and the Pell Grant he receives are the only reasons he can attend OCU at its current rate.

“Without a scholarship, I wouldn’t be able to go here,” Sanchez said. “Not in a million years.”

Windholz said any more changes in fees or tuition will be decided by the budget committee and board of trustees by early November.