TOPEKA – Wichita State University students will pay 8.5 percent more in tuition next school year, but university officials plan to offset the increase through an automatic scholarship.
The increase, approved Thursday by the Board of Regents along with tuition jumps for all state universities, is higher than the 6 percent WSU had proposed in May.
With the augmentation, a full-time in-state WSU student will pay $2,248.50 per semester for classes. The automatic scholarship, funded by federal stimuli money, will apply only to in-state students, said WSU President Donald Beggs.
University of Kansas students will pay $3,283.50 for a semester’s tuition, up 6 percent from the current $3,097.50.
KU students enrolling in the school’s compact program which guarantees the same tuition rate over four year will increase to 7 percent to $3,679.50 up from the current $3,438.75
Kansas State University tuition will increase 3.9 percent to $3,093, up from $2,977.05.
Emporia State University has a small raise to $1,713 up 4 percent from this years $1,647 rate.
Pittsburgh State University students will pay $1,826, up 6.8 percent from $1,710.
Fort Hays State University tuition will jump 7.5 percent to $1,473, up from the current $1,370.25 per semester.
27 Comments
Amazing! Wichita is looking at a 10% jobless rate, and most people didn’t get a raise last year and possibly the year before. These schools make the oil companies look like good guys!
When will the powers that be get it? They have to stop spending like there is no tomorrow. People have a limited amount of money. It is asinine to raise the price. Cut back. That’s what the taxpayer has to do.
Wichita State’s tuition has always been ridiculous compared to other city colleges of similar size. They do it because they can get away with it, and no other reason.
Don’t blame WSU blame the representitives up in Topeka. The regents said that they would not raise tuition if the legislature did not cut anymore from higher ed. But what do they do they cut and guess what tuition goes up. All the blame goes to Topeka on this.
State University’s employees (professor’s, dean’s) need to take a pay cut. KU professors make upward to 370,000.00, KSU has some over 300,000.00 and WSU has some over 200,000.00. People claim their pay is comparable to what they would earn in private sector. I would say take a 10% paycut and if they don’t like it, they can go find a job in private sector. Everyone is replaceable, but then again it’s taxpayers and students picking up the tab.
So why aren’t Obama and Reid and Pelosi whining about the ‘crisis’ we have with higher education?
And furthermore, why is it that higher education raises its prices in a slow economy and for-profit businesses find ways to lower their prices? Higher education: “Our enrollments are going down…maybe we should raise our prices and see if we’ll get more students!”
That’s a pretty big increase for a H.S. education.
Looks like my kids are going to be ESU Hornets, not WSU Shockers. Of course, the 180-mile commute there and back every day is going to be a killer.
I suggest Biggs go take some accounting, budgeting and econ classes. Seems leadership is handicapped in managerial skill.
The rude comments and university bashing is really pretty sad. What this means is fewer people can afford to go to college. This hurts Kansas prospects of landing high-paying jobs and ALL of our schools, be it KU or FHSU. This is nothing to joke about.
TOTALLY LUDICROUS!!!!!!!!!!
No matter who’s to blame, it’s a crisis. When the cost of the education is greater than the income you can potentially earn with that education, it’s not worth going to college. I have a daughter with a Masters Degree in biological Science and can’t find work. With the cost of her education staring her in the face, she’s wondering if it was really worth it now. she can do the job of many positions, but no openings, not the right certifications to be a lab tech even though she can do the job. It’s really tough. Reconsider the cost vs the pay off.
College is an investment, for the student or the institution? I can only wish that my son who recently graduated from WSU could get an 8.5% salary raise. I wish that my investsments in our free market sytem would provide for an 8.5% rate of return. There is something out of balance here. These absurd increases have been every year.
Kansas regents need to be elected, not appointed. These people are responsible to no tax payer. Things have to change, now!
How many hours per semester are these figures based on?
“KU professors make upward to 370,000.00, KSU has some over 300,000.00 and WSU has some over 200,000.00.”
Ha! Prove it. State employees salaries are available under the Freedom of Information Act. I can tell you right now that you are WAY off base. I’d be surprised if there were a handful of college professors, even law professors, working at state colleges in Kansas that make over $100K per year.
“I have a daughter with a Masters Degree in biological Science and can’t find work.”
Not if she’s looking for work around Kansas, she won’t. Plenty of Bio Science jobs anywhere there are mountains or ocean.
I don’t disagree that an 8.5% tuition hike is out of line, but to say that education isn’t worth it is ridiculous. I still owe over $40,000 in student loans but that money was FAR AND AWAY the best money I ever spent. The tuition hike will also mean more kids qualify for federal assistance, and I, for one, have absolutely no problem with my tax dollars being used to pay for education. Better education than bailouts for rich bankers!
I think this is way too much of an increase. But then I have always thought you should always go to a CC for the first 2 years and then go to the other school for the rest. It is not worth the cost for the first 2 years.
I have no degree myself but do pretty well with out it but I do have to keep up with my field all of the time.
fish,
PAB’s comment and salary figure’s listed are basically the top percentile’s, and somewhat misleading. However, salaries over $100K for full professors at public universities like KU, KSU, and WSU are the norm, not the exception. At least with respect to those educated in fields where there is actually private sector demand for their skills. Tenured professors in business, engineering, and certain sciences all earn more than the average person would guess.
Look for yourself. The Wichita Eagle built a searchable database (that’s still accessible somewhere on this site) where you can input a given university employee’s name, and receive a salary in return. When I looked up most of the tenured professors I learned under, I actually couldn’t find a single one who made less than $100K. It was fairly surprising. Of course those were all business school professors. You could look up various liberal arts professors, and find plenty in the $50k’s and $60k’s because – let’s face it – if they weren’t employed in the cozy confines of education, their career options would be very limited in scope, and very mediocre in pay.
Tenured prof at WSU here.
FYI, I make $51,000/yr. and received no increase this year (no one in our college did). In addition, most of the faculty at any univ are not full professors (who as the most senior and highest paid occasionally, but not often, make over 100k). In my dept, NO faculty member makes over $85,000. New faculty start at $45,000. The school director makes about $100,000; our Dean makes about $150,000, we think (keep in mind there are only six deans; above them are the Provost and President).
BTW, that database is quite wrong…my colleagues and I had a good laugh at it when we noticed it last year. I don’t know where the 300,000 numbers come from; I’ve never known any professor who makes that. maybe at Harvard, I don’t know. Nonetheless, here is a link to some REAL data…keep in mind they averages and that faculty salaries vary greatly from department to department (philosophy is not paid the same as engineering):
http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/index.php?action=result&search=Enter+an+institution+name&state=Kansas&year=2009&category=&withRanks=1&limit=
Sorry, here it is again:
http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/index.php?action=result&search=Enter+an+institution+name&state=Kansas&year= 2009&category=&withRanks=1&limit=
Further, the increase is high, but do keep in mind that tuition at the state schools is substantially lower than the national average still. Substantially. WSU is downright cheap compared to the average:
For Public Institutions, 2005-06: $12,108
source: http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=76
Sorry, disregard the last post, as the comparison is not apples to apples…
Well if WSU didn’t always have to pay for our head baseball coach’s legal troubles maybe they wouldn’t have to increase tutition. WSU its high time your started spending taxpayers money correctly.
The negative comments here about WSU are just plain mean and totally unwarranted.
red_state,
http://www.kansas.com/803
$100K at WSU’s Frank Barton School of Business appears to be about the average for professors. None make much more than that.
Surprisingly, there are professors at KU who one would think make substantially more … but they don’t, they actually make slightly less. These are Doctorate degreed full-tenured professors of Engineering, Sciences, Law and Business, too, not English teachers.
I’ve yet to find anyone at KU, KSU or WSU making even close to $200,000, let alone $300,000. Except the men’s sports coaches :-/
Scratch that. When you search, just put in the institution, no names, and you’ll get every employee’s results. Some are surprising!
Ft. Hays is still pretty reasonable. I received my B.F.A there. I have nothing but good things to say about the Graphic Design program. Also the cost of living is very reasonable. The town may not be as impressive as Lawrence, but I guess there are less distractions. Denver and the Rockies are fairly close, which is nice.