Nia Lambdin | Managing Editor

As the 2022-23 school year begins, Bowling Green State University has decided to raise the graduate and undergraduate tuition rates for the incoming classes.

Sherideen Stoll, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance and Administration, explained that the increase is based on what other Ohio schools are doing and making sure BGSU stays within the same ranking as well as its own costs. 

According to The Ohio State University, the “trustees approved an increase of tuition and fees for incoming Ohio freshmen of 4.6%, which is a $549 annual change from last year’s rate.”

Stoll said, “we know a lot of our costs have gone up and it’s been a number of years…” 

According to OSU News, the university is also raising its graduates’ general fees and tuition for the incoming cohort at the university.

The last increase for graduate tuition was in 2011-12 and was completed in multiple parts rather than all at once. 

“We decided to do it as a half and half. We did half one year and half the next year and looking back on that, I’m not sure that was the best approach, so we decided let’s just do one amount and not stagger it over a couple years,” Stoll said. 

The current tuition for graduate students after the 5% increase ranges between $6,432.00 for Ohio residents and $10,426.20 for non-resident graduate students taking 12-18 credit hours. 

For undergraduate students, a 4.6% increase led the tuition to range between $5,727.60 for Ohio residents and $9,721.80 for non-resident students taking 12-18 credit hours. 

However, while the incoming graduates’ and undergraduates’ tuition and general fees had increased, the classes before 2022 have been granted the Falcon Guarantee. 

According to BGSU’s Falcon Guarantee, students from classes before cohort 5 will be locked into “your tuition and fees, housing, meal plan and out-of-state costs for 12 consecutive semesters for undergraduate students.” 

When asked how much of the graduate population was impacted by the rise in tuition, Stoll said they wouldn’t know the results until two weeks after the start of the semester.

While BGSU does not currently have any added scholarship opportunities for graduate students to even out the rising tuition, Stoll believes this will likely change by the next fall semester. 

Stoll said that “…they might start looking at ‘where do we have areas where we have a lot of externally funded research and those students could actually have fee waivers because of their research.” 

The second option Stoll suggested to help graduate students was to create a system where there are fewer stipends and more scholarships for more students. 

Stoll explained that “we have identified some of the things that we need to do differently and I think next year we will continue that. It’s not going to be a big step up, but we’ll keep doing the little (things).”