State recommends college tuition caps

Planning to send your 2009 graduate to an Indiana college this fall? The cost is likely increasing.

Indiana's Commission for Higher Education has recommended tuition and fee rate increases of no higher than 5 percent for the state's seven public college and university systems.

The commission's executive committee recommends that none of the increases for the next two years exceed 5 percent for Indiana and Purdue universities and University of Southern Indiana, 4 percent for Ball State and Ivy Tech Community College, and 3.5 percent for Indiana State and Vincennes University.

The recommendations are nonbinding, so the colleges and universities can go beyond the recommendations. But they might have to justify rates that are higher to the State Budget Committee.

Tuition rates normally would have been set by now but were delayed because it took until Tuesday for legislators to OK a new state budget.

Purdue said Thursday it will raise tuition for in-state students by 5 percent in each of the next two years. Nonresident students would pay 6 percent more in tuition under the proposal.

A public hearing on the tuition increases that would be paid by students attending any of Purdue's campuses is set for July 13. Trustees would then vote on the proposed increases.

Purdue officials say the university was given an apparent flatline in appropriations from the newly enacted state budget, but says 8 percent of the money is in one-time federal stimulus dollars.

France Cordova, Purdue's president,  says Purdue still has critical needs that are substantially underfunded. Indiana University plans to announce its proposed new tuition rates soon.