Typically, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees sets the next year’s tuition rates at its meeting in March.

But because of uncertainty pertaining to how much money the university system is set to get from the state, they will hold off until later in the spring.

This means that high school seniors interested in entering the University in the fall will need to make their decision without knowing what they will pay for tuition for the next four years.

“That seems kind of unfair,” said August Johnson, a senior at Urbana High School who has been accepted to the University. “That’s a lot of peoples’ deciding factor.”

It is tradition for the Board to set rates in March because by that time it is usually clear how much money the University will receive from the state, although sometimes they are set earlier, said University of Illinois spokesman Tom Hardy.

The last time the Board decided rates after the March meeting was in 2003 when it held a special meeting in June of that year to vote on tuition, Hardy said.

“We were in a similar situation, in that the state was in an economic downturn,” Hardy said.

During that time, former Gov. George Ryan had imposed budget cuts, and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich had taken office only a few months earlier.

The General Assembly had to extend its session to finalize the state budget, and the Board wanted to wait until things were finalized at the state level before making a tuition decision, Hardy said.

The factors now are similar to what they were in 2003, and state funding is the biggest factor the Board must consider when deciding tuition rates.

Hardy said he expects the Board to discuss tuition at its March meeting, and it might decide to act, but more likely, it will wait until more is known about the state of the economy, the status of the federal stimulus package and the state budget.

In a meeting with the Daily Illini’s editorial board on Monday, University president B. Joseph White said the Board faces a difficult decision.

It faces the option of significantly increasing tuition to combat a decrease in state funding, or keeping rates closer to what they are now in the interest of helping families feeling the pressure from the economy.

“Recessions don’t last forever,” White said. “But we wouldn’t want to hurt the quality of the University now.”

While incoming freshmen have no way of knowing exactly what they will be paying in tuition, Hardy said students can look back through the history of tuition increases at the University to get an idea of what it is they might be paying.

“The big unknown is the level of state support,” Hardy said. “We want to know what we will have from the state of Illinois.”

High school seniors Johnson and Mary Kimball, of Urbana High School, both said they will attend the University and plan to enroll despite not being sure about tuition.

“It will probably put a little more worry in my parents’ minds,” Kimball said. “I’ve always gotten support from my parents to go where I want, but it will probably effect me in different ways.”