THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230349
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 73 lines
Norfolk State University has a pleasant summer surprise for in-state students: Their tuition and fees won't rise next fall.
Annual tuition and fees will stay at $2,865 for undergraduates from Virginia and $3,248 for in-state graduate students.
Norfolk State will remain the least expensive state-supported four-year school for Virginia undergraduates.
``We've always been very sensitive to the cost of education,'' Clementine Cone, vice president for finance and business, said Wednesday. ``That's part of our mission, to try to make higher education accessible to as many people as possible.''
The tuition schedule recently was approved during an unannounced meeting of the executive committee of NSU's Board of Visitors.
It marks the first time since at least 1990 that Norfolk State has not increased tuition and fees for in-state students.
Virginia colleges have scaled back cost increases in the past few years, as the state has imposed increasingly tighter caps on such increases. But only two other four-year state-supported schools have avoided raising tuition-and-fee increases for the 1996-97 year, Virginia officials said.
Longwood College is holding its annual charge for in-state undergraduates at $4,370. And Christopher Newport University last month approved a slight decrease, from $3,390 to $3,366.
Gov. George F. Allen and the General Assembly recently approved a two-year freeze on tuition rates for in-state students. However, the freeze does not apply to required fees, such as activities charges.
At Norfolk State Wednesday, students said they hadn't yet heard about the the administration's decision. But after they were shown the fee schedule, they weren't complaining.
``It's good because they were talking about increases,'' said DeWayne Barton, a sophomore from Portsmouth.
Isabelle Jones, a junior from Virginia Beach, agreed that it was a good deal. ``You can't put a price on education,'' she said. ``Fourteen hundred dollars (a semester) for what I get? Actually, they're robbing themselves.''
NSU isn't holding all charges steady. Room-and-board costs will go up $376 a year to help the university pay for the recent construction of dorms, Cone said.
Tuition and fees for out-of-state undergraduates will increase 1.6 percent, from $6,392 to $6,492 a year.
But the rate for out-of-state graduate students will go down 6.3 percent, from $7,300 to $6,843 a year. ``We felt we were way overpriced,'' Cone said. ``Our graduate programs are trying to get established. In the past, we've really not had a significant number of out-of-state students in them, but that's beginning to increase, and we were getting complaints that it costs an awful lot.''
The university also has a discount rate for out-of-state military students, and that, too, will not go up in 1996-97.
Cone said the state legislature's vote to add $200 million in funding for educational programs at colleges helped stave off fee increases. Of the $200 million, Norfolk State was allotted an extra $6 million over the next two years.
She said she couldn't guarantee that NSU would avoid increases in tuition and fees in future years, but ``We're going to do our level best to keep them minimal. As long as the General Assembly gives us adequate support, our students can expect no major increases in tuition and increases in fees only if there is a critical need.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
VP
NSU COSTS
SOURCE: Norfolk State University
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: TUITION COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES NORFOLK
STATE UNIVERSITY by CNB