With the tight budget situation in Illinois, it looks like the University will have to continue to cut costs and possibly (most likely) raise tuition.

With the increase, total student fees for fall 2009 in Urbana will be $1,368 per semester or $2,736 per year.

For current students, we are lucky that our tuition is locked in (although fees are not), so the freshmen class will probably again bear the brunt of a tuition hike – but we’ll have to wait till March for that announcement.

News-Gazette: UI Makes Plans for Tight Budget Situation

To those incoming freshman… sorry. The Board of Trustees has passed the proposed tuition rate increase and you will be paying over $20,034 next fall. The good news is that your rate will never increase.

According to the University’s Guaranteed Tuition Policy, a student’s tuition rate is frozen for four years. While this seems great, it is cause for alarm to some. Those students partaking in a study-abroad program, CO-OP or other activity that will leave them at UI for more than four years, may see a huge tuition rate hike their last year. The Policy does account for many exceptions including military services, CO-OP’s and those enrolled in degree programs requiring more than four years.

If you are on track to make your college experience last with an additional year or so, check out the official University of Illinois Guaranteed Tuition Policy Guidelines to see if you’ll be paying more or have a case for exception.

Check out the Guaranteed Tuition Policy website!

The cost of tuition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is about to sky-rocket. With an eight percent increase over last year’s rate, the proposed amount, $20,034, is the highest in school history. The rate, if accepted by the Board of Trustees, will affect incoming students for the 2008-2009 school year. Current students are safe, however, thanks to a rate freeze, mandated by the state, that charges students the same rate for all four years of their education.

“This rate of increase is lower than the rate of increase that students experience at many other institutions competing with the University of Illinois,” officials said in the document proposing the increase.

Fees at UIC will likely be slightly higher because the school is waiting to find out how much a mandatory CTA pass will cost next year. Students have to approve a referendum on those costs next month. It currently costs $95 for a semester pass that allows students unlimited CTA rides. Journalism students will pay an extra $750. That puts their tuition increase at 17 percent.

Stay tuned to The Quad to see if the proposal is passed…

$20,034 a year to be an Illini? – Chicago Sun-Times