UM Curators approve increases in tuition and fees

The University of Missouri Board of Curators approved a 5 percent increase in tuition at all four system campuses.

President Mun Choi said the university is trying to keep the university affordable. “We’ve been very mindful of affordability,” he said. “As I stated before, we could have gone up to 6.7 percent but we didn’t, and last year our tuition increase was only 1 percent.”

The board also approved increases in fees across the university system. The new fees for 2019-2020 include a 1.5 percent, or $6.90, increase in activity, facility and service fees for all University of Missouri Columbia students.

The biggest fee increases on the Columbia campus are in specific programs. Among the highest are the MU schools of medicine, journalism and nursing.

The School of Medicine requested a fee increase of $40 per credit hour from the current $40.80 fee per credit hour, making next year’s increase 96.1 percent.

The journalism school proposed its course fee increase 36.1 percent or $29.20 per hour. The course fee currently is $80.80 dollars per credit hour. The school says the increases are mainly to support hiring additional instructors.

The Sinclair School of Nursing is proposed a 30 percent increase of $32.50 per undergraduate credit hour from the already $108.20 per credit hour. The proposal before the curators states tuition is not enough to cover the rising costs of training health care professionals.

The curators also apporved a motion to move forward with the construction of the Translational Precision Medicine Complex.