Going to college? Survey the fees

The cost of earning that degree keeps climbing each year. While some schools offer varying room options and meal plans for students that choose to stay on campus, those fees are optional for some students. What is required are the tuition and mandatory fees every enrolled student must pay.

Here’s a closer look at the tuition and mandatory fees charged by local colleges and universities.

Keystone College

The LaPlume school that straddles the border of Wyoming and Lackawanna counties set its 2008-09 tuition rate at $16,950 for the year. Adding in mandatory $850 in fees and the cost for a student totals $17,800. That’s a 5.7 percent hike from the 2007-08 academic year. Costs have climbed 29.9 percent since the 2003-04 academic year.

King’s College

The private Wilkes-Barre school has seen its tuition and fees jump 29 percent the past five years. In 2003-04, a commuter student’s tuition and fees were $19,060. This fall, after the board set the tuition rates over the weekend, the cost will be $24,680, a 5.25 percent hike from this academic year. Costs have climbed 29.4 percent over the past five years, with yearly increases between 5 and 5.52 percent.

Lackawanna College

The Scranton college’s board of trustees, on April 23, set tuition for the 2008-09 academic year at a flat rate of $10,400. There’s also a $100 activity fee, the same as this academic year, and a new $60 technology fee that’s been instituted. In all, tuition will be $400, or 4 percent, more in the fall than the current semester’s rate.

Luzerne County Community College

The school’s board of trustees, on April 8, changed the way it will charge students. Rather than charging $80 per credit hour for county residents, this fall students will begin paying a flat rate of $2,400 per year for those taking 24 to 36 credits. That’s similar to the way Lackawanna College in Scranton has set its tuition nearly the past decade. All students must also pay a $10 general services fee per credit hour and an $8 technology fee per credit hour. So a student taking 30 credits a year will pay $2,940 for the 2008-09 academic year. A student taking 30 credits a year in 2003-04 would have paid $2,370. Those taking fewer than 12 credits will pay $80 per credit hour, the same as last year and $10 more than they would have paid six years ago.

Marywood University

Students will pay $24,300 for tuition this fall, in addition they’ll be required to pay $890 for a general fee and $100 for a student activity fee, meaning the annual cost will be $25,290 for the academic year. That’s an increase of 5.4 percent or $1,300 over the 2007-08 academic year.

Misericordia University

The Dallas Township school will charge students $21,990 for tuition this fall and an additional $1,160 in mandatory fees. Those fees help to supplement the cost of class dues, student publications, student services, and student government. It also goes toward operating facilities available for student use such as the Anderson Sports-Health Center, the Bevevino Library, and the Banks Student Center, according to school spokesman Paul Krzywicki.

The total, which was adopted by trustees in February, will be $23,150. Since 2003-04, the total of tuition plus mandatory fees has increased 29.4 percent.

Penn State University – Hazleton, Worthington Scranton and Wilkes-Barre campuses

The PSU Board of Trustees will not set rates until July. For the 2007-08 academic year, full-time commuter students attending these campuses paid $10,454 for tuition. They were also required to pay $424 for a mandatory information technology fee and $128 for a mandatory student activity fee. In total, a student paid $10,878 this current academic year. Fees and tuition costs for the three campuses have steadily increased by more than $1,000, or 20.4 percent, over the past five years. In the 2003-04 school year, a student would have paid $9,028 for tuition and fees.

University of Scranton

The Jesuit college has raised tuition at a higher rate than any other local college since 2003. The increase in the past five years has been 46.8 percent, the largest increase in Luzerne, Wyoming and Lackawanna counties. Just from 2007-08 to 2008-09, tuition and mandatory fees will increase 9.7 percent, but the school instituted a program that keeps current student tuition increases between 4 and 6 percent annually, even though the cost for a new enrollee jumps at a different rate. For example, the tuition for a student that entered the school in the fall of 2007 will see his or her tuition increase 4.7 percent when they return for classes this fall.

Wilkes University

The Wilkes-Barre school will raise its tuition by 4.5 percent for the 2008-09 school year. Trustees set that increased rate on April 4. That’s the same percentage it increased tuition for the current academic school year, but much less than the 6 percent raises it approved in 2006-07 and 2005-06. A commuter student in the fall will pay $25,170, factoring in $23,850 for annual tuition and $1,320 in mandatory fees. The school mandates five separate fees students pay: general, technology, activity, student union and recreation. The student union and recreation fees, of $25 and $30 respectively, remained unchanged but the other three fees all increased between $5 and $15.