Y. still considered bargain despite a 6.1% tuition hike

PROVO — Like a lot of high school graduates, Meagan Wyllie wanted to leave home to go to college. Wyllie's parents hesitated because, unlike most high school graduates, Wyllie was 16.

So they compromised. Wyllie's brother had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and graduated from church-owned Brigham Young University, and "he suggested BYU would be a good place for me to end up at 16 with its Honor Code and no drinking. My parents were all for it."

That was 2004, and while the Honor Code and her love of snowboarding remain the same, Wyllie's non-LDS tuition sure hasn't. BYU announced Monday that it will raise tuition 6.1 percent next year, which means Wyllie's parents will pay 56 percent more for her senior year than they did when she was a freshman.

That translates to an increase from $2,460 a semester to $3,840 per semester.

BYU continues to be relatively cheap, so Wyllie isn't complaining. Still, the Southern Californian was disconcerted when her tuition jumped 42 percent this year because the university changed its policy regarding students who aren't members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They now pay twice as much instead of one-and-a-half times more than their LDS classmates.

LDS students will pay $1,920 per semester next year.

The university charges non-LDS students more because church members subsidize every student's tuition through tithing paid to the church. The subsidy runs into the hundreds of millions each year, and the subsequently low tuition makes BYU, at either price, one of the best values in American higher education, according to Consumer Digest, U.S. News & World Report and the Princeton Review.

"I think last year was a little bit of a shock," Wyllie said, "because when I came here three years ago, the tuitions (for LDS and non-LDS) were very comparable. When they decided we'd pay double, I was a little frustrated, but then I looked at it and said, that's $3,600 a year, and when you look at other schools, it's better than you can do almost anywhere else. There's no way I can even go to an in-state school in California for that money."

BYU's non-LDS tuition is $3,620 this year, comparable to or better than what an out-of-state student like Wyllie would pay to go to Utah Valley State College ($3,626 this year) or the University of Utah ($5,339), and those schools charge additional fees while BYU does not.

"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."