Regents OK raising student fees, housing, food costs

Regents OK raising student fees, housing, food costs

(AP) — University of Wisconsin System students will spend more on fees, housing and food this fall under a new annual budget that regents approved Thursday as they grapple with ways to raise money in the face of a tuition freeze and deep state cutbacks.

Julie Gordon, the system's interim vice president of finance, told the regents that 70 percent of the fee increase will fund building projects like UW-La Crosse's.

The only exception is UW-Stevens Point, where students approved a tuition increase via referendum last fall, as allowed by the state budget.

Overall, students at the four-year schools can expect to pay an average of $206 more next year, bringing the average overall cost to attend a UW four-year school in the next school year to $15,291.

The regents did vote unanimously Thursday to ask the Higher Educational Aids Board to include an additional $12.7 million for student financial aid in its 2017-19 budget request to Walker this fall.

According to system data, state aid to the system for 2016-17 will ring in at about a billion dollars less than in 2007-08.