INDIANAPOLIS (Inside Indiana Business) – The Ivy Tech Community College Board of Trustees on Thursday approved tuition and fees for the next two academic years. The college said the move will result in lower overall costs for about two-thirds of its students.
Ivy Tech uses a banded tuition structure in which students who are enrolled in 12 or more credit hours pay the same tuition regardless of the number of credits.
With the board’s approval, banded tuition and mandatory fees will go from $2,318.25 per semester to $2,455.76 for 2023-24 and $2,577.11 for 2024-25.
While tuition is going up, Ivy Tech is making changes to its fee structure in an effort to save students money.
Ivy Tech is incorporating the $75 per semester mandatory technology fee into the 2023-24 tuition rate, which the college said will create savings for many students because the fee had historically been charged to all students rather than being proportional to the number of credit hours in which a student was enrolled.
The college is also eliminating the $20 per credit hour distance education fee for select modalities, including classes taught through IvyOnline, which was charged to 75% of students last year.
Additionally, Ivy Tech students will pay $17 per credit hour for all textbooks in 2023-24, and that number will be reduced to $16.50 the following year. Ivy Tech said the model will save students more than $17 million annually in textbook costs.
“The college takes its commitment to student affordability seriously, and we look for ways to reduce overall college costs for students in a transparent and equitable way,” President Sue Ellspermann said in a news release. “Our Ivy+ Tuition and Textbooks model saves students money by providing summer flex scholarships and leveraging our purchasing power to reduce textbook costs.”
Ivy Tech add that several federal and state financial aid programs are available to students, including the federal Pell Grant, which provides students up to $3,698 per semester. The state also offers the Frank O’Bannon Award, which provides Ivy Tech students up to $2,350 per semester, as well as the 21st Century Scholars Award, the Adult Student Grant and the Workforce Ready Grant.
The approval from the Ivy Tech board comes just days after the Indiana University Board of Trustees approved a 3% tuition increase for undergraduate in-state students. The university also cut over 50% of its fees, which it said will save students $14.5 million per year starting in the 2024 fiscal year.
