Y. to boost tuition 6.2%

PROVO — Brigham Young University will raise tuition 6.2 percent for most of its student body this coming year, the largest hike in a dozen years, but the rising costs of higher education will be felt most by those who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The LDS Church sponsors BYU and subsidizes the tuition of every student through tithing paid by church members. Students who are not church members will begin paying 200 percent of member tuition next year, up from 150 percent.

Undergraduate tuition for members for the 2006-07 academic year will rise to $1,810 per semester, an increase of $105 from this year.

"Because we had a series of years when our tuition increases were minimal, and in many cases below those of other institutions in the state and throughout the nation, the Board of Trustees felt it was necessary to make an adjustment this year," said Brian K. Evans, BYU's chief financial officer.

BYU was ranked the third-best college value in the country by the Princeton Review earlier this year. An official at the education-services company told the Deseret Morning News in April that the ranking was influenced by the church's subsidy since students clearly paid less than the value of a BYU education.

Graduate students face steeper hikes.

General graduate school tuition for church members will increase 6.3 percent to $2,290. Law school and graduate students studying business will pay $4,100, a 10.1 percent hike.

BYU has raised tuition every year but one since 1980, with no increase for the 2002-03 school year. But those increases have been consistently lower over the past dozen years, averaging 3 percent over the past five years. No hike had exceeded 4.7 percent since undergraduate tuition rose 6.4 percent for the 1994-95 school year.

That was the largest increase since the early 1980s, when tuition rose sharply in the first four years of the decade with hikes of 7.8, 13.4, 10.9 and 9.8 percent.

Undergraduate students who are not LDS are paying $2,460 a semester this year. Next year, the cost will jump to $3,620.

"The non-member rate is still less expensive than out-of-state tuition at many state universities," Evans said.

The University of Utah currently charges undergraduate in-state students $2,149 per semester for 15 credit hours. Out-of-state students pay $6,686.

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