Ohio State University trustees approve tuition and fees, new guarantee

The Board of Trustees has approved new tuition and fees for the 2017-18 academic year and enacted the Ohio State Tuition Guarantee. In-state tuition and mandatory fees will increase 5.5 percent for incoming freshmen on the Columbus campus and, under the guarantee, be frozen at that level for four years. The guarantee, enacted by the State legislature, is a requirement when state universities want to increase tuition.

When the program begins this fall, it will apply to new incoming freshman only. Tuition and fees will not increase for existing, in-state students — including sophomores, juniors and seniors — enrolled on all campuses. It is the fifth straight year that in-state tuition and fees have been frozen for existing students.

The board also approved a 6 percent increase in housing and a 3 percent increase in dining. For incoming freshmen, the guarantee program will freeze both for four years.

At the same time, Ohio State will expand financial aid by

• Increasing the value of the Land Grant Opportunity Scholarship program to cover the full cost of attendance. The university will also double the size of the scholarship program next year, making the scholarship available to two students from each Ohio county per year — a total of 176 scholarships.
• Committing $25 million to the President’s Affordability Grant Program. Entering its third year, the program will have provided a total of $60 million to middle- and lower-income Ohio undergraduates — bringing the university closer to its stated goal of $100 million in additional need-based aid by 2020. The grants are funded through Ohio State’s administrative efficiency program.
• Current students will continue to pay $10,037 for in-state tuition and mandatory fees at the Columbus campus. For incoming first-year students on the Columbus campus, the Ohio State Tuition Guarantee sets resident tuition and fees at $10,591 per year through 2020-21. The tuition guarantee is set at $7,553 for the Lima, Mansfield, Marion and Newark campuses and $7,517 at the Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster.

The university offers a variety of housing and dining plans. The most common undergraduate plans on the Columbus campus will total $6,126 per semesters.

Trustees also approved:

• New housing and dining plans for the Newark campus; increasing student health insurance by 8.7 percent; and adjusting eight market-based differential fees for master’s and professional programs in individual colleges.
• Increasing the non-resident surcharge for undergraduates and most graduate students by 5 percent and increasing the international surcharge by $996 per year for new international students.
• Continuing the tuition waiver for Ohio State students enrolled in university-approved Third Party Provider/Direct Enroll Study Abroad Programs for fiscal years 2018 and 2019.