UVa board approves 9.9 percent tuition hike for in-state students

The University of Virginia will charge in-state undergraduate students $956 more next year, marking the university’s costliest tuition and mandatory fee increase in seven years.

UVa’s Board of Visitors voted unanimously Friday to raise in-state tuition and fees by 9.9 percent to $10,628 for the 2010-11 academic year.

Out-of-state undergraduate students will see their tuition and fees go up 6 percent, or $1,902, to $33,574.

The increases are needed, UVa officials said, because of rising costs and dwindling state support.

Over the past three years, UVa’s allocation from the state has dropped by $37 million. State support has fallen from $12,000 per student a decade ago to $8,500 next year.

Public colleges and universities across Virginia are turning to higher tuition and fees amid the state’s revenue woes.

A week ago, Virginia Tech raised its tuition and fees by 9.8 percent to $9,589 for in-state students and by 6.1 percent to $23,217 for out-of-state students.

Virginia Common-wealth University on Thursday increased its in-state tuition and fees by 24 percent to $8,817. Out-of-state VCU students will pay $1,200 more for a total of $21,949.

James Madison University, meanwhile, raised its in-state tuition by 6.7 percent to $7,860. JMU increased out-of-state tuition by 5.7 percent to $20,624.

Tuition at UVa and other public universities in Virginia is likely to rise substantially in the coming years, said UVa board member Heywood Fralin.

“This is just the beginning,” Fralin said. “These tuition increases [this year] are nowhere near what they may be next year.”

Tuition increases in Virginia have been held down a bit thanks to funding from the economic stimulus package approved by Congress in early 2009. Virginia received $75 million from the stimulus bill in fiscal 2010 and $198 million for fiscal 2011. Next year, however, that money will run out.

Part of UVa’s tuition increase will go to pay the rising costs of the university’s financial aid program, AccessUVa. A portion will pay for the higher price tag of health and retirement benefits for UVa employees. It will fund operations and maintenance of new facilities at UVa. And it will go toward new investments in the School of Engineering, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the School of Medicine, the School of Architecture and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

UVa’s board also approved tuition and fee increases for graduate students. Grad students from Virginia will pay 9.8 percent more, totaling $13,870. Out-of-state grad students will pay 5.5 percent more, for a total of $23,866.

In other business, UVa’s BOV voted to approve the concept and select the architect of a new theater that would be added to the university’s Drama Building.

The two-story 20,500-square-foot facility would be built into the hillside and would connect to the southeast corner of the Drama Building.

“The concept itself is to create a flexible program space that could be used for dance, film [or] lecture,” University Architect David Neuman told the BOV.

The project is estimated to cost between $13.5 million and $15 million in gifts and is expected to open by May 2012. The BOV will review the project’s design in June and will consider its final approval in September.