University tuition for next year is still up in the air. Tuition will definitely rise, said Associate Provost Bill Adams, but the University has yet to decide by how much.

“Of course, each year tuition goes up,” Adams said. “We’re in the process right now of deciding what we’re going to do.”

That process has included numerous meetings with the Tuition Policy Advisory Committee, a group of nine students that have advised the Provost’s office and the Board of Trustees (BOT) on student concerns. Adams said the University has also held a town hall meeting and the Student Trustee’s office and the Illinois Student Senate (ISS) produced a tuition survey. The link to the survey’s Web site was mass-mailed to University students.

Adam Blahnik, ISS senator, said the results of the ISS survey show that students are concerned with any hike in tuition.

“More students took part in our survey than in years before,” he said. “We sent out two e-mails and had a town hall meeting just before, so we think those were catalysts for the turnout.”

However, Blahnik said the ISS and the University haven’t been able to fully examine the results.

“We haven’t been able to look at them yet,” he said. “Next week, we’ll have a lot more information for the provost and the BOT. But we had a larger response this year; we’re very pleased with that.”

Adams said the projected increase in tuition will be discussed at the Nov. 11 BOT meeting.

“Then they’ll put it on their agenda to vote on at the January meeting,” Adams said. “The discussion is kind of a warm-up, you could say. After the meeting, we’ll have more solid numbers, but they’ll look a lot like this.”

Adams said he expects about a 7 percent tuition increase for continuing students and a 9 percent increase for incoming students.

University spokesperson Lex Tate said the decision has become more complicated now that state schools in Illinois are required to adhere to the Guaranteed Tuition Plan, which requires a set tuition for at least four consecutive years at school.

“Guaranteed Tuition is a little like a pre-payment plan, we have to set tuition rates in advance,” she said. “So right now, we’re setting two rates, one for continuing students and one for incoming students.”

This year’s incoming students are the first to take advantage of the Guaranteed Tuition Plan, paying $3,230 a semester, Tate said. That is an increase of about 16 percent from last year’s rate for incoming students.

“They’re paying $3,230 this year, $3,230 next year, $3,230 the year after that and $3,230 the year after that,” Tate explained.

She added that returning students saw a tuition increase of about 8 percent this year.

Adams said several factors have led to the increase, including the lack of increases in state funds, salary programs, costs of library services, network infrastructure needs and recruitment of faculty.