Fees, Room and Board Rates Rising at Kent State

Students at can expect to pay more for room and board and in some course fees starting in the fall.

The university's board of trustees voted Wednesday to increase room and board rates on average by about 5.9 percent. With the room and board increase, the trustees also approved a number of changes to student fees, including addition of a $10 per credit hour fee for all distance-learning courses and a $795 increase for students in an advanced commercial pilot flight course.

Kent State University President Lester Lefton said no room rates are increasing by more than 6 percent.

"The (room and board) increase largely reflects increases in the costs of running the dormitories, increases in food costs, which have been quite substantial, and infrastructure improvements that have to take place," Lefton said. "You can't just build a building and never fix it up."

An overall increase of 5.42 percent will take place in the standard, undergraduate double-room board rates. Under the new rates, a standard double-occupancy room and a full meal plan will cost $8,830 for the spring and fall semesters — an increase of $454, or $227 per semester, according to the university. Similar increases will take place for the single and quad rooms, on-campus apartments and four other board plans.

The room and board rate increase also is tied to a university plan to install wireless service in all of Kent State's 25 residence halls. Lefton estimated about $900,000 is tied to finishing the wireless project, which is under way, by the start of the fall 2011 semester.

The wireless project includes removing the remaining 3,600 landline telephone lines in dormitories, which see less use with each incoming class.

"We want to have that done so that every student who lives in a dormitory will have wireless," Lefton said. "They currently have Internet, but it's wired."

In making the wireless technology upgrades, the university expects to cut operating costs by reducing energy use and eliminating redundant connections. Logos Communications, of Westlake, is administering the project, which includes the installation of full wireless coverage across all eight Kent State campuses in the region.

Lefton said Kent State's fees are among the lowest in Ohio compared to other public universities.

"Our fee structure has been relatively low for a very long time," he said. "And we're trying to continue to provide services to the students that the students are demanding. And that has necessitated a relatively modest increase in fees."