CCU students will have to shell out a little more next year

Students at Coastal Carolina University should save up a few extra dollars for the next school year.

The board of trustees Thursday approved a 3.29 percent increase in tuition and fees next year for both in-state and out-of-state students.

The cost of housing and meal plans didn’t change, resulting in a 1.7 percent increase ($173) in total costs per semester for in-state and on-campus students from $10,150 in fiscal year 2015-2016 to $10,323 in fiscal year 2016-2017.

For part-time in-state students, the cost per credit hour will increase $14 from $442 to $456.

Out-of-state students will face an increase of $400 per semester.

One reason behind the increase is a state-mandated 3.25 percent pay raise for all state employees, including the roughly 1,200 full-time employees at CCU.

The pay raise will result in $2.9 million of the $11.5 million increase in the university’s salaries and benefits budget, according to Stacie Bowie, vice president of finance and administration.

The rest of the increase is needed to pay the salaries and benefits of new hires from last year, and open positions that will be filled this year, she said.

Bowie said the tuition increase will generate $4.1 million for the university, and some board members said tuition wouldn’t have increased as much if not for the state-mandated pay raise.

“You’ve got to find somewhere to get the income to pay the increase in salaries,” said board of trustees member Delan Stevens. “We want to try to keep tuition as low as we can. We don’t like doing increases, but at the same time, you have to have enough money to operate the university, so when you have things like this, where you have to have pay increases, you just have to have more income to accommodate that.”

The university receives $11.8 million of its budget from the state, according to Bowie.

“The rest of everything we spend here on campus from salaries, benefits, grounds, flowers, you name it – everything on campus, is actually paid for, 94 percent, by student tuition,” Bowie said.

This year’s budget is $151.2 million, up $13.5 million from last year’s $137.7 million budget.

The board members who were present at the meeting unanimously voted for the tuition hike.

This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "CCU students will have to shell out a little more next year."