Bowling Green State University (BGSU) officially announced new student fees for the 2026-27 academic year.
From the newest agreement, the costs for students’ on-campus housing, dining and special fees were officially approved by the Board of Trustees for the next academic school year.
“I think all in all, the trustees were happy,” said Casey Wyman, chief financial officer. “I met with the student undergraduate, student graduate and the faculty; all the constituent groups to talk about the strategy beforehand. To make sure they understood it, they bought in and had a voice in the process.”
These price changes will only affect incoming BGSU students, as returning students are protected from fee increases through the Falcon Tuition Guarantee.
“With our tuition guarantee, it’s only for incoming students,” Wyman said. “So, everyone who was previously here is held at their own rate.”
For incoming students who will be living in the on-campus residence halls, the average price is rising 2.5%, and the meal plan prices are increasing by 3% from the 2025-26 academic year.
Even though the overall average for residence hall prices increased, it doesn’t mean that each hall itself had a price rise.
“If you think of all of our dormitories, some of them stayed stagnant, some of them increased above that rate, but it averaged out to be 2.5%,” Wyman said.
According to the BGSU 2026-27 On-Campus Housing and Dining Agreement, all the residence halls except for the Kreischer Quadrangle will have an increased price for the next school year.
Halls such as Conklin, Kohl, McDonald and the Offenhauer Towers will all be increasing from $3,900 per semester to $4,040. Centennial Hall and Falcon Heights will also see an $140 increase per semester from 2025-26 to 2026-27.
A room in the Kreischer Quadrangle residence hall will remain at $3,380 for a double and $2,545 for a triple per semester.
When coming up with price changes for residence halls, both amenities and inflationary costs were considered.
“The tier one rooms, these did not have any price changes,” he said. “But if you have the other rooms, like the tier two, three and four rooms, they did increase.”
Along with the amenities of the residence halls, Wyman also said he tried to keep affordability for students in mind, leading to no price raises for tier one rooms.
“So the way I looked at this was that the standard of Kriescher hasn’t necessarily changed. We haven’t done a significant improvement to Kriescher,” he said. “But also, if I have to keep affordability in the forefront, knowing that we are an affordable state institution, how can I best maintain that?”
When deciding on the price changes for meal plans, Wyman mentioned attempting to find a way to keep different, flexible options available, all while still maintaining costs for the program, which played a role in the 3% increase.
“As we look at our different dining option meal plans, we go into it to find what we need to generate to be able to cover our costs, but also have enough to have for capital investment back into the program,” Wyman said. “We do the analysis, run the numbers and then try to make an affordable recommendation to the trustees.”
Special course fees and specific program fees were also covered in the most recent agreement, as it was the first time BGSU has been allowed to raise course fees in the last 10 years.
Both these types of fees will vary depending on the type of course, specifically depending on whether a supply or lab is needed, for example. These fees will also depend on whether BGSU has a way to cover the fee internally, or if the Ohio suspension on course fees will create an increased price for students.
“This is essentially the first year in 10 years we have been able to do this,” said Wyman. “Inflation over the last 10 years has been pretty significant. So, some of these course fees haven’t changed for over 10 years, which would equate to about a 35% loss to buying power.”
