Southern Arkansas University students will pay more to attend classes at the Magnolia campus.
Meeting in Magnolia on Thursday, trustees froze in-state, undergraduate student tuition but raised three mandatory fees -- academic excellence, computer technology and public safety.
Undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees for an Arkansas resident who takes 15 credit hours per semester will be $8,676 for the 2018-19 academic year.
The university said the public safety fee increase will provide money for additional equipment and training for campus police officers, extra security lighting and cameras, and training.
Academic excellence fees will help with the state's new performance-funding formula, which puts an emphasis on student success, retention and graduation rates. The technology fee increase will help the university keep up to date on technology.
SAU has about 4,340 students, which includes about 3,040 undergraduates.
So far, two other universities have frozen tuition for the coming academic year but raised some fees. They are the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
Henderson State University's board of trustees meets today in Arkadelphia, where it will, among other things, set rates for the coming academic year.
The University of Arkansas board of trustees takes up tuition and fee rates at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus.
The Arkansas State University board of trustees meets May 31 at the Arkansas State University MidSouth community college campus, which is in West Memphis.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson had asked state universities to keep tuition at the same level as in 2017-18. He did not request that they hold fees at the same level.
Metro on 05/18/2018