"The tuition increase is due to the rise of costs of operating the university," BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. "We do have a very rigorous resource planning process that takes place in every college and department campus each year in order to best use BYU's resources. Nonetheless, there are costs that do rise."

It took 117 years for BYU tuition to reach $1,000 per semester in 1991. It will reach $2,000 just 17 years later if the university announces a more modest 4 percent hike for the 2008-09 school year.

While Wyllie's parents foot her tuition bill, she stepped up to help shoulder this year's increase. The junior in physiology and developmental biology got a job caring for a developmentally and physically disabled girl in Highland and took over paying for all of her living expenses.

"I just turned 18 last year and I decided it was time to take up more responsibility," she said. "I didn't think it was fair to ask my parents to pay for everything."

Nationally, tuition and fees rose 6.3 percent this fall at public four-year colleges, according to a study released last month by the College Board. Private schools saw an increase of 5.9 percent to an average of $22,218.

BYU also has earned recognition from U.S. News the past year for the light debt load its students have when they graduate. The magazine ranked BYU 12th in the country and reported that only 35 percent of BYU graduates leave school with debt, and their average debt is less than $13,000.

Jenkins credited BYU's eight-year-old program called "Creating a Financial Path to Graduation." The program can be found online at saas.byu.edu/depts/finaid/documents/fp2g.pdf.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com