While fees might be increasing in some schools, Jon McDermott is working to curb the costs for his students as much as possible.

About 100 students at the University are majoring in Flight Technology and Operations. McDermott, program director of Aviation Studies, said those students pay about $10,000 in flight fees each year in addition to tuition and room and board.

“[The fee] pays for basically renting the airplane, like you would rent a car,” he said.

The fees cover maintenance, fuel, flight instructor fees and aspects of basic airport operation.

Next year, the fees will not increase.

“We are very aware of the cost of this type of education,” McDermott said. “One thing we try to do at BGSU is add value to the $10,000.”

McDermott said they’ve made some personnel changes, which allowed them to save some money for the students.

One way the program is saving money, McDermott said, is through upgrading systems with new technology.

Instrument Approach Plates are diagrams of airports, which allow a pilot to land an aircraft when he or she cannot see the runway. McDermott said each plate at the University’s airport contains diagrams for every airport in Ohio and Indiana. The plates have to be updated every two months, and those updates cost $3,000 every year.

But McDermott said the program is switching to iPads, which cost $500 each, and the software to update the diagrams is free.

Pilots are required to fly with additional charts that cost about $9 each with an update required every six months. But on the iPad, McDermott said, they can download the software for free.

McDermott said major airlines are beginning to make the switch to iPads instead of paper copies of maps, and students who graduate from the University knowing how to use the online programs will be that much more marketable.

“You can put that on your resume — ‘I am iPad proficient in aeronautics,'” he said.

Part of the reason flight fees are so high is because many aviation programs don’t get much money from the state, so schools rely on student fees, said BJ Galloway, chair of the Department of Aviation at Ohio University. Another reason is because equipment and fuel is so expensive.

New planes cost anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000, and fuel is $5 to $7 per gallon.

“You think that maintenance on a car is a pain, the [Federal Aviation Administration] has redefined that for aviation,” he said.

Galloway said if a plane burns eight gallons per hour, then the cheapest cost for one hour of flight time is $40.

“The single greatest expense in airlines, after personnel, is fuel,” Galloway said.

Junior Jon Fluegemann, a flight student at the University, said the schools he looked at for aviation were Embry-Riddle, Purdue and the University.

“I didn’t do much with Embry-Riddle when I figured out it was going to be $55,000 a year,” he said.

When Fluegemann arrived at the University as a freshman, he said it was about $8,000 for a private license, $15,000 for a commercial single and multi-engine license and $16,000 for an instrument rating.

Embry-Riddle only offered him a private license for $10,000.

“That was three years ago,” he said. “Prices might have gone up.”